


No Answer Will Be Heard To The Question No One Asks

by Wayward_WLW (Parker_Haven_Wuornos)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Another Empty Rescue Fic, Castiel's True Form (Supernatural), Eventual Communication, Eventual Smut, Fairy Tale Logic, Feelings, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Hadestown, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Neither Canon Compliant Nor Canon Defiant, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Post-Finale, The Empty (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28951632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Wayward_WLW
Summary: He lets himself do nothing but wallow for three days after Chuck is defeated. On the third day, he leaves his room, refusing to see any symbolism in it."Dean what are you doing?" Sam asks.That's a stupid question, but Dean answers anyway. "I'm bringing him back."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	1. The Path to Paradise; The Road to Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning to all, I have not watched the entire series, so things that are canon accurate are purely accidental. I just wanted to write them a better ending. Enjoy!

Dean Winchester has pretty much cornered the market on rock bottom. He's died, he's been to hell, he's been tortured, possessed, shot, stabbed, cut, and knocked unconscious in every way it's possible to be, and some that it isn't.

But this is a new low.

He _hurts_ in a way that is so much more than physical. Everything is heavy.

He's old.

Ancient.

"The world is too much with us," he whispers, a line of poetry he doesn't know the source of. The world, newly restored and supposedly better than before, is too much for Dean.

It's too much and not enough.

The world is fine. Saved.

Dean's world is shattered.

He lets himself do nothing but wallow for three days after Chuck is defeated. On the third day, he leaves his room, refusing to see any symbolism in it.

On the third day, he goes to the library and he begins to read.

At first, it's communication across planes, but there's nothing there about speaking to someone in the empty, and Dean wants more than that anyway.

He moves on to summoning. There are tons of spells for summoning all manner of things from every dimension Dean has heard of and a few new ones to boot.

He's still digging through it all on the sixth day, when Sam comes into the room.

He'd been gone, checking up on people they'd lost who'd returned, Dean is distantly glad Sam saw them, glad they're okay, glad they're back.

But not everyone is back, and he needs to fix that.

"Dean," Sam says, "Are you—"

He stops, and Dean is glad, because it would have been a stupid question.

"Dean what are you doing?" Sam asks.

That's a stupid question too, but Dean answers anyway. "I'm bringing him back."

There's no need to say who he's bringing back.

Sam sighs. "Dean…"

Dean is fairly certain he knows exactly what Sam is going to say, which makes it even easier than usual to tune him out.

When he's done, Dean looks at him and says simply. "You're not talking me out of this."

Sam nods and leaves.

Dean returns to his reading, pretending he isn't hurt that Sam didn't offer to help.

He doesn’t care enough to dwell on it though. He doesn’t need Sam’s help. He can do this without him.

Summoning doesn’t get him far; the end result is only a single page of scratched notes that may not help at all. It drives him crazy how little information there is, but he won't allow the word impossible into his mind.

 _It's necessary,_ He thinks. _If it's necessary, it's possible._

He loses track of the days. The bunker is easily the nicest place he's lived, but it's not exactly full of natural light. He knows that hours pass while he digs through book after book, but they happen with little awareness on his part.

Sometimes Sam brings food, and Dean usually ignores it unless it's something he can eat one-handed while the other flips through whatever book he's searching through.

They don't talk. Sam comes and goes and Dean never asks where he spends his time. Sam is probably after that normal life he was always going on about, the one that Dean had long ago given up hoping for.

Except…

Dean stands, crosses the room on unsteady feet, so hungry he’s shaking but forgoing the day-old sandwich Sam had made him and instead pouring himself a glass of whiskey. He drinks the full thing and lets himself, for one second, imagine the _after._

After he gets Cas out of the empty.

After he finally…

After all that, he could do anything.

And he pictures a farm. Or maybe just a house with a garden. He doesn’t know fuck all about plants, but he thinks he’d like to learn. Some of it would be herbs, protective stuff, but he also thinks he’d like to grow vegetables.

He can imagine growing his own food. He can imagine living somewhere quiet, going out for hunts only when he feels like it (and he thinks he’ll feel like it less and less as time goes on).

And he imagines not being alone, and then he has to stop himself.

He can’t….

It’s Cas. Cas has always been unpredictable. He’s not human for fucks sake and Dean _knows_ they don’t think the same way and…

And he can’t assume. He can’t just assume that pulling Cas out of wherever he is means that Dean gets to have him. That’s not the way the world works, and anyway, Dean recognizes it for the selfish bullshit it is.

He’s not saving Cas for himself. He’s saving Cas because Cas deserved to be saved ages ago, before he even had to summon the empty in the first place.

Dean pours and finishes another drink before he lets himself remember that.

The look on Cas’s face, the tears in his eyes, the hope and the agony and the joy.

And his own silence. His frozen horror and wonder at the revelation of it, the jagged beauty at finally knowing something so precious and having it pulled away before he could even

Dean goes back to the books, pouring over them with renewed interest.

He dives into reading about other dimensions and realms. Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the empty barely gets a passing mention but he digs, further and deeper, scratching through translations and untangling messy footnotes to determine where someone heard something to tell someone to write it down.

It’s exhausting, and he’s pretty sure several more days go by before anyone comes into library. By now, he’s eaten the sandwich, and finished the whiskey. He’s hungry, and sick and tired but Cas is still in there.

He can’t stop thinking about it. Every time he thinks about taking a break, thinks he’s earned one from some minor breakthrough, he remembers the way Cas had looked as that thing had swallowed him alive. The fact that he’d looked so _at peace._ Like he’d truly believed this was final.

Dean swung, shoving his glass off the table with as much force as he has left in him. It shatters against the floor.

“Dean?” Charlie’s voice is soft, cautious and gentle and familiar and Dean doesn’t want her here.

“Go away.”

“Not happening.”

She steps past the messy pile of rejected books he’ll bother to reshelve someday. “Dean—”

“I’m fine,” He says before she can ask.

She glares, one hand on her hip. “Clearly.”

He shrugs. “What do you want?”  
“To help.”

He sighs, rubbing his face. Suddenly he’s aware that what he thought was a few days’ stubble is a full beard, and that he feels really, truly awful. “I don’t need help.”

“Dean…”

He doesn’t want her softness, doesn’t deserve her wide-open eyes that look used to smiling, even if they’re creased in a frown now. He shoves one of the books off the table and it hits the ground with a sound like gunfire.

Charlie jumps, but only barely, and then she’s stepping forward, into his space, closer than he wants her to be, closer than anyone has been since—

“Dean, you aren’t okay,” She says firmly.

“I’m fine,” He snaps. He means for it to come out a growl, something low and intimidating to scare her off, but his voice breaks and he can hear how gutted he sounds.

He takes a step towards her, if he can’t make her back down with words, he’ll scare her off physically. He’ll shove her away, not hard enough to hurt but enough that she’ll see.

He’s too far gone. She has to leave him alone.

He staggers, his legs buckling underneath him as the room pitches like a sinking ship.

He’s pretty sure he nearly crushes Charlie on the way down, but her hands on his shoulders steady him enough that he makes it back into the chair he’d been sitting in.

“Stay here,” She says, suddenly industrious.

He doesn’t think he’d make it far if he tried to go anywhere; he can’t recall the last time he’d felt this physically weak. He’d been hit bad a lot of times, but being beaten and being weak are different things. He’s not used to this.

Charlie returns a few minutes later with a bowl of popcorn, which she sets in front of him with an air of authority that would have been amusing if he was capable of finding anything funny.

“You know they used to give popcorn to people returning from being shipwrecked, something about it helped ease people back into eating.” She takes a few pieces and nudges the bowl towards him.

He wants to reach for the book he’d been reading—he could swear he’d been about to find something useful—but Charlie is watching him like she’s ready to smack him if he tries.

So he takes a few pieces of popcorn and puts them in his mouth.

He gags around the shock of butter and salt when he’s had little more than water and alcohol for days. His stomach flips uncomfortably and he’s sure he’ll puke, but the feeling passes.

Charlie goes to the bar and fills a glass with water. She puts it next to him and waits until he drinks.

Dean isn’t used to this quiet confidence from her. She’s brave, strong, a hundred things Dean knows he isn’t, but she’s rarely quiet. He wonders if she’s holding onto the words with effort, and wants to thank her.

Thanking her might break the silence though, and he doesn’t think he’d survive that.

He polishes off most of the bowl of popcorn and two glasses of water, and he realizes that he does feel a little better.

“You need to shower,” She says.

“Char—”

“Seriously,” She says. “You need to shower.”

“I’m close with this,” He says, gesturing towards the book. “I’ll do it after—”

“I’ll read while you shower,” She says.

He’s about to protest when she puts a hand on his arm, her skin warm and soft and startling on his. “You don’t have to do this alone,” She whispers.

He opens his mouth to protest, to tell her that Cas being gone is his fault and it’s his wrong to right, but she stomps on his foot.

“Save your macho bullshit, stinky. Go shower; I’ll research.”

He gets up and shuffles out the door.

He runs into Sam in the hallway and they both pause, watching each other.

Sam looks at him.

Dean waits, ready for another pitying speech about grief from someone who didn’t lose half as much.

“You smell like shit.”

It is, at least, familiar territory. Solid ground that reminds Dean of simpler days when it was just them in the car on long, dark highways, being rude to each other without heat or hard feelings.

“At least I’m still pretty.” Someday he might manage to make it sound less hollow.

Sam, bless him, smiles anyway and moves on.

Dean goes through the motions of a shower but doesn’t linger there. Showers had been his safest place for a while. When they’d first started traveling with their dad, the grief over his mom had been a raw, gaping wound he didn’t understand and couldn’t fill.

To save Sammy and his dad from having to hear him, he’d only cried in the shower, when the water was on full blast, a cheap fan doing its best and groaning the whole time, and the door shut. No one, he had been confident, would know he was breaking.

He doesn’t want to relive that now, as an adult, so he keeps his motions perfunctory until he’s clean and dry and has even managed to put on fresh clothes.

He doesn’t shave, can’t bear the thought of looking at his reflection for the amount of time it would take.

 _Cas loved this face_ , He would think, and the white-hot grief of it would split him in two and he’d never recover.

So he goes back to the library still sporting a halfhearted attempt at a beard.

Charlie smiles when she sees him. “How do you feel?”

He grunts and ignores the question. “Find anything?” The words are comfortable, something the old him would have said, something Dean Winchester, Hunter and Apocalypse Stopper would have said. He doesn’t feel like that person anymore, but he likes that he can still sound like him.

She shrugs. “I don’t think so. There’s some about thin spots between worlds and opening doors but not much mentions the empty.”

He nods. It’s what he was expecting.

“I highlighted this, though,” She says, holding the book out to him.

It’s a list of herbs and ingredients for summoning a door. He can’t believe he’d missed it. “This—”

“It’s still not about the empty, you’d have to get more for that, but maybe the door could… I don’t know maybe it could help.” She looks down, staring hard at the floor. “I hope it helps.”

Dean nods, still studying the book. A lot of it is things they have, more of are things he knows how to get.

“I miss him too, you know,” Charlie says.

Dean says nothing. He drops a curtain behind his eyes, refusing to let her see the wound there. He knows, in the back of his mind, that she’s telling the truth. Charlie _does_ miss Cas, just like Sam does.

But not like Dean does.

The ache is back, clawing a hole through his stomach, scraping him raw on the inside until he isn’t sure how to keep himself upright.

“Dean?”

He says nothing, afraid of what will come out if he tries to open his mouth.

“Dean look—”

“I’m fine,” The words come out on a gag. His stomach turns over and he remembers why he hasn’t been eating. He breathes, feeling like he ran a marathon. Finally, the pressure eases enough for him to say, “I’ll be fine when I have him back.”

The look she gives him is so gentle, so kind, and so horrifically pitying that he can only glance at it for a moment, like trying to stare into the sun.

He hates it.

“Dean what if—”

“Don’t.” He snaps, his voice low and hostile. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.”

“Dean—”

“STOP SAYING MY FUCKING NAME—”

Charlie falls back, for half a second, she looks scared, then she packages the expression carefully away and stands up. “I’m worried about you, Dean.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m going to help,” She continues. “If there’s a way to get to him; we’ll find it.”

He’s about to object to the ‘if’ when she puts her hand up. “But someday you might have to let go. Someday—”

“Never,” He says, very quietly. “Never.”

She lets it drop, picks up a book off the pile and starts to read.

Sam comes in later that night and sits down, taking the book from Charlie, who is nodding off over it.

He sets down a plate of sandwiches, nudging it towards Dean, who ignores it.

He’s still reading, something vaguely promising about summoning doors and gateways to other realms.

“Still don’t know how I’d find him,” Dean mutters, scratching down his new information. “Even if I get in.”

Sam and Charlie exchange a look that seems significant, but which Dean refuses to acknowledge. They’ll see. He knows…

This isn’t over. It can’t possibly be over.

A few hours later, Sam and Charlie leave. Charlie tries vainly to get him to get a few hours of sleep; he lies and tells her he will as soon as he’s done with the chapter he’s on. He doesn’t think they believe it, but they accept it and go.

He finishes the chapter and sits, not reaching for a new book yet. In the quiet, in the dark, he prays for the first time in a long time.

“Hi Cas, I uh, I know you can’t hear me. Probably. I uh, I guess you can’t hear me, but I’m coming. I don’t know how yet, but it’ll happen. I’ll figure it out; that’s what I do. Just… just wait for me Cas. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Wait for me.”

A month went by. It got cold. Dean hardly noticed because he hardly went outside.

Charlie and Sam took turns keeping him eating, sleeping, and showering. He read, he googled, he translated, he cross referenced.

He made very little progress.

If it were for anything else— _anyone_ else—Dean doesn’t think he’d keep going. Charlie and Sam are tired; Dean can tell. He watches them when they try to help, sees the listless way they flip through pages, barely taking the time to read them. He knows they think it’s hopeless.

One night, very gently, Charlie tries to broach the impossible subject again. Dean shuts her down before she gets to her point, and she’s quiet for a minute before she speaks into the darkness, so quiet.

“Why?”

Dean wants to snap at her again, wants to get angry, but he’s tired too. He feels broken, hacked down the center. “Because I loved him,” Dean said, barely a whisper. “I loved him, and I didn’t tell him.”

She doesn’t say anything for so long that Dean thinks maybe she didn’t hear him.

Once upon a time, he’d have made a joke about it. The Dean that had gotten Cas back all the times he’d lost him would have made the joke, cracked the smile, played it off. The Dean Charlie looks up at doesn’t have anything left in him.

She sighs and reaches across the table to lay her hand over his. Her skin is warm and soft, but her fingers are strong when she wraps them around his. “He knew.”

Dean ignores her and goes back to reading. He can’t bring himself to tell her his great shame; that he knew that Cas hadn’t known, that he’d truly believed that Dean returning his love was impossible.

His greatest happiness was still a concession: not having it, just saying it.

And so Dean had to bring him back, because he had something to say, and he had something to offer, and he was going to give Cas greater than the greatest happiness he’d been able to imagine.

More days, and maybe even weeks pass before anything breaks Dean’s concentration. He spends them pouring over books about crossing into other planes temporarily, and trying to dig up something that would get him to Cas. He hasn’t even started on exit plans.

“Dean, some of the others are here for dinner,” Sam says carefully. He and Charlie always talk quietly and slowly around Dean, like he’s a wild animal that might attack at any second. “They’re asking about you. They’re worried.”

“I’m in the middle—”

“One night, Dean,” Sam says. “One night won’t make a difference.”

“You don’t know that,” Dean snaps, but his eyes are blurring, and he doesn’t think there’s much left in this book that will help him. He’ll need to find new sources soon; he’s starting to think he’s run through everything the bunker library has for him.

“Dean, please.”

So, just because his little brother said please, Dean stands up and goes to his room to put on a clean shirt. He doesn’t shave, but he trims the beard to make it look more intentional, and notices how long and messy his hair has gotten.

He still looks like shit, but he looks like slightly better shit, which is as good as he’ll get. He goes to the door and prepares to see other people. Just before he clicks off the light, he catches another glimpse of his reflection.

 _Cas loved that face._ The thought has serrated edges that cut through his calm. In a second, he’s leaning against the wall gasping for breath, holding off sobs with just barely enough success.

It takes another five minutes of panting in the dark before he can reattempt leaving the room. He still feels adrift when he walks into the kitchen where there are too many people hovering around.

His eyes catch on Claire and his stomach drops out from under him. She looks like him. Wide blue eyes that are just so fucking full of feeling and—

The room is not exactly silent, just conspicuously quiet, like the few conversations that are going know that they’re happening only to prevent absolute awkwardness.

Claire steps forward carefully, and Dean wonders if she’s thinking about bolting, or if she thinks he will. Eventually they manage to meet in the middle, and he’s not sure exactly who initiates, but they’re hugging.

They know.

The thought flattens him, but Dean suddenly realizes that everyone in the damn room knows that he loves Cas, maybe they know that Cas loved him. How, he wonders, could he not have known? How could he have doubted?

Claire is still clinging to him. “I’m sorry,” She says into his shoulder.

He pats her a little roughly on the back. “It’s good to see you kid,” He says, meaning it. It’s hard to look right at her. He can’t help but see Cas’s face in hers, even though, technically, that’s not Cas’s face.

“I miss him,” She says as she pulls away, flicking at a tear like a bug landed on her cheek.

Dean nods. “Me too.”

Later on, after he’s retreated to the library for more reading and everyone has gone, Dean realizes that he never told anyone that he was going to bring Cas back. It takes him a while to realize that it’s because of Claire.

The kid has been through too much, and he can’t bear to get her hopes up if he’s just going to disappoint her too.

It feels like a confession. Like he’s finally admitting that he’s losing hope.

 _That’s your problem, Dean. You don’t have faith._ The words echo, the faintest hint of a memory. Dean had never needed to have faith. Cas’d had enough for the both of them.

Finally, in the dark library, Dean admits to himself that he wants to give up. That he’s tired, he’s breaking, and he’s losing hope in ever seeing Cas again. He sinks slowly to the floor and cries.

He cries for himself and for Cas and for Jack and for Claire and for everything he’s ever lost and thought he got back and never gotten to keep.

 _I need a win,_ He thinks at nothing. He can’t bring himself to pray to Jack. It’s just too strange, too wrong, to picture that kid—his kid—as some kind of spirit in the sky who’ll answer his prayers. He wants to talk to Cas, wants to call out and wait for the quiet rush of wings and the settled knowledge that Cas has just poofed into the room and is probably standing uncomfortably close behind him.

Sam walks in instead. “Dean, we need to talk.”

Dean sighs. He should have been expecting this. “About what, Sammy?”

“This… this obsession with Cas. Dean, he’s gone—”

“Yes, and I’m going to bring him back—” The words ring hollow, even as he tries to feel them.

“You can’t, Dean!” Sam snaps, abruptly angry. At least it keeps Dean listening. “I talked to Jack, I asked. He doesn’t think there’s a way and he’s, you know, kind of omniscient now so—”

“Jack’s a kid,” Dean says. “There are things he doesn’t know.” He wonders if it counts as blasphemy when god is his adopted son.

“Dean…”

“What do you want, Sam? You want me to just give up and leave him there?” Dean feels like he’s talking to his own doubts more than he is to Sam.

“Yes, Dean. He’s… Cas is gone. I miss him, I do. I’m sorry it happened but… this obsession is going to kill you. You have to—”

“What do I have to do?” He’s glaring now, gearing up for a fight he hadn’t realized he had the energy for, but his anger burns hot and bright, the strongest thing he’s felt in months.

“Be _you,_ Dean. Go hunting, be normal, find a way to get over it. This isn’t healthy.”

“What the fuck would we know about what’s healthy?” He snaps.

Sam sighs. “Dean, please, just… just leave the bunker, do _something_. I’m begging you.”

“Fine,” Dean says. “Find me a job.” Too wound up to sit and read, he leaves his research where it is and storms to his room.

He doesn’t turn the light on, just leans against the closed door and takes a long breath. “You’re out there Cas; you’re out there and I’m going to find you.” He hates himself for his moment of doubt, hates that there is a part of him that thinks Sam might be right. Hates that he might not be strong enough to keep this promise.

By the time he finally finds something, winter has hit, hard and cold.

He took Sam’s advice, and started going on hunts, usually alone. It’s nothing he can’t handle, in fact they’re almost boring, but they allow him a unique opportunity.

He had exhausted the information available to him in the bunker, so on his hunts, he starts tapping a new resource. He asks every demon and monster he encounters about the empty, he asks about magic and summoning and doors and anything that might be relevant. Mostly, they ignore his questions and he kills them, but he gleans small hints, ideas of how to open a door that might get him there. He still doesn’t know how to get Cas out, but he keeps on asking.

The breakthrough comes from a crossroads demon that seems only half-invested in taking souls, and more interested in wandering the earth trading demonic favors for restaurant recommendations and concert tickets.

“You don’t have to kill me,” The demon says. “I’ll trade! My life for something you want. C’mon man, there must be something.”

“You can’t give me what I want,” Dean says, but his hands are shaking.

“Try me.” He swallows hard and adds, “Please.”

And Dean, in a moment he can be ashamed of later does. “I need to rescue someone from the empty.”

“Oh. Well that’s uh. Hoo, boy that’s a tough sell, but there is a way. Well, there’s a rumor.”

A rumor is more than Dean’s found in months of looking. “What?”

“Maybe more of a legend, or a myth. One of those—”

“Tell me the fucking myth!”

“Wow, touchy, okay. Rumor has it that you can open a door to neither heaven nor hell and walk into the empty, and take what you want.”

“What?” Dean can’t wrap his head around any such rumor existing.

“Oh, you know, there are tests and stuff, some kind of trial, I don’t know if anyone’s tried it. I mean, who’d want to take something from the empty? It’s all dead demons and gods and angels and shit.”

Dean grits his teeth and stops himself from killing the demon there. This is exactly what he’s been looking for. He knows how to open doors to heaven and hell, he can figure out opening one to neither. And then…

And then he just has to walk in, and walk out with Cas. The tests somehow don't concern him.

Maybe he’s starting to have a little faith.

He figures that if the demon kills anyone, he’ll track it down and end it, but when he thinks back to himself wiping away part of the devil’s trap to let him go, he doesn’t feel any regret.

It isn’t the worst thing he’s done to save someone he loves.

He gets back to the bunker and heads to the kitchen, haphazardly putting a sandwich together for himself, buzzing with something huge and painful and beautiful.

“You seem… good,” Sam says, sounding surprised.

“Uh, yeah.” He clamps his mouth shut, afraid he’ll burst with the good news, only to see the pitying look Sam will give him, because Sam has never believed that Dean can do this.

“You made food.”

Dean looks at his sandwich. “Sorry, should have made enough for—”

“No, you… you made food for yourself. You haven’t… Dean you haven’t done that since before—”

“Oh. Yeah, uh, I guess it’s a good day.”

And Sam smiles, wide and genuine. “I’m glad. Dean, I’m uh, really glad to hear that.”

“Yeah, okay, shut up,” Dean says, not because he’s actually mad, or doesn’t understand what Sam is saying, but because he knows that Sam thinks he’s getting over it. _Dealing_ with his grief.

Dean isn’t. He just finally feels like he might not have to grieve at all.

He tells Charlie the next time she stops by with a book she thinks might help him. It warms him, her genuine belief that he can do this. It makes him feel like maybe they’re right.

“So, you can just walk in?” Charlie says. “You don’t think that sounds, I don’t know, too easy?”

“It won’t be,” He says, sure of it somewhere past knowledge. “But I don’t need it to be easy. Just as long as it’s possible.”

The book she brought actually touches on the demon’s legend, so Charlie reads it while Dean works out what he’ll need to open the door.

“Dean, it says here that the empty won’t want to release anyone in it. You’ll have to… you’ll have to prove that you have the right to take him.” She sighs heavily. “To do this, you’ll need to be absolutely sure—”

“To do what?” Sam asks. Dean hadn’t noticed him standing in the doorway, listening to them.

“Get Cas,” Dean says simply.

Sam looks like someone just shot his dog. “Dean, I thought… I thought you were getting better.”

“I found something,” Dean says. “Finally, I found something that might really work—”

“And if it doesn’t, Dean?” Sam asks. “What then?”

Dean forces a shrug. “I don’t—”

“Will I ever get my brother back?” He asks. “It’s been months, Dean, and you don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you leave to go on hunts and you come back and you go right to the library without so much as a hello, and I don’t… I don’t know what to do. And now you’re going to get yourself killed trying to do something impossible.”

Sam looks breathless, like he’s been holding all that in for a long time. Dean isn’t sure what to say. He knows how he’s looked these past few months but…

But honestly what did Sam expect?

Dean sighs. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Don’t,” Sam snaps. “Don’t do this, just—”

“Sammy, I gotta try.” He looks away, spacing out as he remembers Cas’s eyes, the last part of him to be swallowed by the empty, washed with tears and happy, despite everything. “It’s Cas. I have to try.”

“What about us?” Sam asks. “What about me and Charlie and Claire and all the others?”

Dean shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to explain that he can’t just drop this. That it’s too important, that—

“You’re just like Dad.” Sam’s eyes are cold. He knows it’s a low blow and doesn’t care. “Obsessed with killing the thing that made you sad, fuck everyone and everything else. Claire loves you, she _needs_ you, and you’re going to be another death in her life to go on an impossible rescue mission.”

“It’s not impossible, Sammy,” Dean says.

“Should I go?” Charlie asks. “I think I should—”

“Don’t, please,” Dean says. “I need help with this.”

“Dean…”

Sam shifts, frowning. “You’re just going to leave all of us? Just give up and die after everything?”

“I’m not going to die,” Dean insists. “I promise.”

“Nothing’s going to bring you back this time, Dean. Things are different now. We die, it sticks.”

“I know,” Dean says.

“So how are you so sure you’re going to survive this?”

“This time I want to.”

There is a long, aching pause, and Dean thinks Sam might punch him. He’s pretty sure this is usually where they’d punch each other, but he can’t find the rhythm of their old arguing anymore.

The tension leaves Sam’s shoulders abruptly and he turns, walking away without another word. Dean feels hollowed out, standing in the middle of the library.

Charlie puts a hand on his shoulder. “What do you need?”

He lays out what he knows, and what ingredients he needs, and how it’ll work.

Charlie just nods through it all, he wonders if maybe she hadn’t been asking about the spell, but about him, but he doesn’t try to find out. They spend the night making a list of ingredients, and sometime a little before dawn, Dean goes to sleep, and just before he goes under, he whispers.

“I’m coming.”

Two days later, Sam walks into the library and sets a jar down in front of Dean. “Heart of a monster.”

It’s one of the ingredients, one he and Charlie had barely discussed yet. Dean is overcome with a sharp gratitude that brings actual tears to his eyes. He forces them back down, but manages a heartfelt, “Thanks, Sam.”

Sam smiles. “Yeah, well, don’t say I never did anything for you.”

He turns to go, but Dean catches his sleeve. “I would never say that.”

The moment feels significant, and Dean, for once, doesn’t want to break it. It feels new and tentative, but he wonders if maybe this is what healthy is. He thinks about the shock he felt when Cas poured his heart out, and the fact that he hadn’t managed to say a goddamn thing in response. And he thinks about what would happen if he died suddenly, randomly.

How much would he have never said? Never told anyone? It makes him want to shout things he’s kept hidden for years, it makes him want to be recklessly honest.

He doesn’t do any of that—the idea of it terrifies him to the point of choking—but he’s glad he at least thanked Sam.

It’s a start.

Dean eats regularly, sleeps five hours every night, and goes for a run each morning before he settles into working on the door. Charlie or Sam help him, and they respect his request not to tell the others.

It’s really Claire that Dean doesn’t want to know.

“Have you thought about the tests?” Charlie asks one day while the three of them are hard at work sorting out the sigils they’ll need to create the door.

Dean shrugs. “I’ll deal with it when I get to them.”

“Dean, you have no idea what they are,” Sam points out.

“Nope.”

“What if… what if you need something? What if there’s something you have to answer or—”

“I don’t know, Sam,” Dean says, letting a little irritation crawl into his voice. “There’s nothing out there about them so I have to just… be ready.”

“Be ready? For something you don’t know anything about?”

Charlie looks like she’s about to leave; she never tries to mediate their fights and Dean doesn’t blame her.

“I don’t think,” Dean sighs, dragging a hand through his hair—it’s too long, he needs to cut it but he still avoids mirrors—”Listen, I don’t think I _can_ prepare for them. I think I just have to face them.”

“And you know this how? Instinct?”

“Yeah, Sam, instinct, and after all this time, my instincts are pretty damn good!”

“You could be walking into anything! You need to wait, to find out more, to—”  
“I can’t _wait,_ Sammy. He… he needs me.”

He realizes how it must sound after the words are out of his mouth, but he doesn’t try to take them back. He’s going to need to talk this through with Sam eventually, because if— _when_ —he gets Cas back, things might change, and Sam has a right to know that ahead of time.

“Dean… I’m just worried; you don’t know what’s in there.”

“Guys?” Charlie says hesitantly, “I think… I think it might be kind of an… you know, an internal journey.”

“A what?”

“Well, we can’t know for sure, but it might just be about… knowing what you want and, uh, being brave enough to have it.” She shrugs, but her face is open and honest.

 _Knowing what you want and being brave enough to have it._ Dean’s stomach flips at that, a hopeful sort of discomfort he can’t examine too closely.

Sam clears his throat. “Well, uh, in that case, well that means that you have to be sure about this. Really sure.”

Dean nods, his hand tracing absently over his upper arm, over the memory of a handprint. “I am.”

They’re ready a week later.

“You should go,” Dean says, speaking with the same instinct that told him he could handle the trials, the same one that had been guiding him from the beginning, telling him it was possible, telling him he could do this.

“Dean, no, you could need help,” Sam says.

“We’ve been in this from the beginning,” Charlie says, “We want to save him too.”

Dean nods. “I know, but… this is something I have to do alone. You should both… you should both get out of here. Come back in a few days.”

“And what will we find?” Sam asked.

Dean looks away, knowing he might be condemning his brother to finding his body or, maybe worse, nothing at all. “Hopefully me, and Cas.”

Charlie nods first, and stands on her toes to hug him. He holds her fiercely for a long moment. “You’re incredible, Charlie Bradbury,” He says, fighting for sincerity. “You deserve the world and… I hope I see you get it. I, uh, love you.”

Charlie smiles. “I know. I love you too.” She gives him one more quick squeeze and then steps away, fiddling with one of the ingredients to give him a moment with Sam.

“Sammy—”

“You can do this, Dean,” Sam says, quiet and sure.

Dean nods. “Sam, there’s… there’s a lot we never talked about—”

“You don’t have to do this—”

“I want to. I should have, before. And I never did, so I’m doing it now. You’re my brother, Sam, and I love you. Always will. If I fuck this up, though, you can’t… you gotta let me go.”

“Dean—”

“Go. Live your life, whatever that looks like. Be a hunter, be a lawyer, I don’t give a damn; you’ll be great at it.”

Sam nods. “Dean, I… thanks. For everything. I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters, hugging Sam one more time. “Just don’t do anything stupid, like naming a kid after me.”

Sam smiles, blurry through tears, and nods. “Good luck, Dean.”

“You too, Sammy.”

Sam and Charlie leave, and the silence in the bunker echoes. Dean takes one last breath.

“You’re not alone, Cas,” He says. “I’m coming.”

He takes the heart Sam had brought and crushes it against the sigil on the wall. Blood drips down it, strangely slow and even until Dean realizes he’s not looking at an empty wall anymore.

It’s a door. Black and smooth like granite. When he puts his hand on it, it swings open into a fast, dark space.

Dean steps in.

At first it’s just walking. His footsteps make no sound, there’s no anything. It isn’t cold or warm, just… nothing.

Empty.

He keeps walking, and slowly he gets confused.

Why is he here?

Where is he?

Who is he?

It’s slow, feeling siphoning away from him, and then memory too. He’s not unhappy. He’s not anything.

There’s nothing, but…

_Cas. I’m here for Cas. I’m looking for Cas._

_I’m Dean Winchester and I’m looking for Castiel._

It snaps him into focus, and he keeps going, further into the empty. He forces himself to relive memories, anything that will keep him focused on Cas, on getting out.

Cas, blowing up lights and walking towards him in a barn late one night, an incomprehensible stranger.

_I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition._

Cas in the fake apocalypse world, high off his ass and still willing to die for him.

Cas, human and vulnerable, willing to risk anything for the world and for everyone in it. And for him.

Cas, beating the shit out of him because of mind control or some other bullshit.

Dean, beating the shit out of Cas and only stopping because Cas was the only person who could have stopped him.

And both of them, driving at night in his car, highway lights throwing sporadic light on Cas’s face, bathing him in orangey-yellow light.

Dean holds onto all of it, and walks.

“Who are you?” The voice slithers like snakes, wrapping around Dean and seeping into his bones.

“I’m Dean Winchester.” For once, it doesn’t occur to him to make jokes, to be sarcastic.

“Why have you come?”

“I’m here for Cas. The angel, Castiel.”

There is a pause, and the voice solidifies into a being of shadows, human shaped but also not, featureless and eerie.

“And what right do you have to take him from here?”

Dean breathes. He focuses. “He shouldn’t be here, and I’m taking him home.”

“Castiel made a deal; this is exactly where he should be.”

“Well, I’m taking him out anyway,” Dean says, with more confidence than he feels.

The being shifts, tilting its head. “Will you earn your escape, and his?”

“Yes.”

“You have already passed the first trial. You made it here without forgetting your purpose. The next will be harder.”

Dean nods. He’s ready. He can do this. Whatever it is, he can do it.

“You must recognize him.”

Dean frowns. It’s so simple, too simple. He knows Cas. He can picture him right now, his blue eyes and dark hair and that tiny smile—

The being sweeps its arm to reveal three massive… things.

“One of these is your Castiel,” The being says. “Choose correctly.”

Dean tries very hard to look at them, to look close enough, but they are incomprehensible. The size of skyscrapers, and moving constantly, shifting with golden light and the coldness of space and everything in between. He thinks, when he looks closely, that he can see things he recognizes: eyes and wings and ever-changing animal heads but he can’t make sense of it and none of the three look like _Cas._

It’s overwhelming, just trying to look at them. It hurts and it feels so impossible. Cas is an _angel._ Of course Dean had always known that but seeing this makes it so tangible. He can’t even look properly at Cas’s true form. He had known that, right from the beginning; it was one of the first things Cas said to him, but…

But then Dean had forgotten to try. Had let himself think of Cas as a powerful, magical human just so it didn’t complicate his worldview. And it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t right.

He closes his eyes, focusing on breathing, and on Cas.

When he opens his eyes, he looks at the shapes again, and stops trying to see them as things he understands. He finds his image of Cas as a human, as a guy he knows, as someone he loves, and loosens his grip on it, dropping it away finger by finger.

The incomprehensible shapes don’t change at all. They are still massive and impossible and far beyond and above him. And Dean accepts that.

And he bows his head and thinks about Cas with tears in his eyes, telling Dean that he loves him.

And he opens them again and _looks_ at the forms in front of him. He stops trying to understand, and just lets himself see and experience them.

And somehow, one of them is familiar. “The one in the center. That’s Castiel.”

The being nods, and Dean waits, breath held.

The other two beings vanish, and the one in the center shrinks, folding in on itself and collapsing smaller and smaller until it’s a figure in a worn tan coat, laying on the ground like a corpse.

“You can only bring him back like this,” The being says. “Nothing more. He will lose his grace and be as you are, fully human.”

Dean nods, wholly consumed with holding himself where he is and not immediately running to see if Cas is okay.

“Are you worth that?” The being asks, simple and emotionless. “Are you worth him giving up everything, for you?”

Dean freezes. Everything in him screams that of course he isn’t, that Cas deserves so much more.

He has seen him now. Dean has seen Cas for what he was, beautiful and powerful and terrifying and awesome in the true sense of the word, not the way Dean always uses it.

_Divine._

Having looked on that, can Dean really be the one who takes it away from him? Who drags him into a world of trivial inconveniences, eating and sleeping and pissing and shuffling from place to place? Is he worth giving it all up?

 _No._ Of course he isn’t. How could he have ever even thought, how could he have presumed to…

Dean knows what he is. He’s a killer, and not even a very smart one. He’s fucked up hundreds, thousands of times, and every time, people have gotten hurt and that’s his fault. Everything has been his fault for so long and if he does this, he will destroy Cas too, destroy Cas _again._

“Well?” The being asks. “What is your answer? Are you worthy?”

The answer is on the tip of his tongue, he is opening his mouth to form the word ‘no’, true and agonizing.

But he stops.

_You are the most caring man on earth. I cared about the whole world because of you._

“Do you think you are worthy?” The barest hint of irritation colors the being’s voice.

“No,” Dean says, “But Cas did. Cas thought I was worthy.”

“And you believe him? Believe him enough to tear him from his very nature?”

Dean breathes, feeling something inside of him settle, like cutting the power to a live wire, for the first time since Cas had been taken. “Yes.”

The being stepped aside, no longer blocking Dean’s way. “Then take him. Walk out of here with him.”

“That’s it?” Dean asks. “I can just take him?”

The being doesn’t move, it has no mouth or eyes, but Dean senses a smile from it, a smirk that makes his skin crawl. “You can take him. As long as you’re sure.”

“Sure of what?” Dean asks, but the being is gone. He is still for a moment, disbelieving, but he kicks his ass into gear and runs for Cas.

He’s limp on the ground, but breathing. He looks exactly as Dean remembers, but there is an aching echo now that Dean knows what Cas really looks like, and will never look like again.

 _As long as you’re sure._ The voice’s words echo, and Dean forces himself to ignore them.

It’s Cas; he’s sure.

“Cas?” He says. “Cas, c’mon, we’re leaving.”

Cas doesn’t stir, doesn’t move at all, not even to flick an eye under his closed lids, so Dean pulls his arm over his shoulders and lifts him. He walks, Cas’s feet dragging limply as they go.

He walks, and is pleasantly surprised to find that nothing is trying to pull his memories from him. He can see the door. They’re almost out.

It’s so easy. It’s too easy. It’s impossible.

Why would the empty just let them leave like this? Wouldn’t it want… more from him?

There must be another test, another trial, something else he just hasn’t seen yet.

Something will try to take Cas from him, even though he’s so close, even though the door is right there.

And wouldn’t that serve him right? For all the times he’s been so close to telling Cas how he feels, to closing the distance between them and cradling Cas’s face and kissing him, to holding onto him when one of them is sad or needs comfort. Doesn’t he deserve to lose him when he’s such a close almost?

And what does he really think he’s doing? Does he think he can rescue Cas, tell him he loves him and then they’ll what? Live happily ever after? Dean doesn’t know how to do that; he’s never known how to do that.

The door seems further away now, like it pulls back with every step Dean takes. It’s a trick, and Dean should have known. He should have known he would not be allowed to have this.

It’s impossible. He’s too far gone. Too much.

Too undeserving.

Cas loves him. He loves Cas. But when has that ever been enough? He loves Cas but he can barely imagine saying it. Even when he was praying to an angel who couldn’t hear him, Dean hadn’t managed to say that he loved him, what the hell was different now?

The facts… the facts hurt, but they were what they were. He couldn’t walk out with Cas; not when the door was so far away, not when he didn’t know what their lives would be like on the other side of it.

Not when he couldn’t give Cas everything he deserved, not when he couldn’t accept everything Cas offered.

Not when he wasn’t sure it would last. The world could start to end again as soon as they got back and then what? Would they just live, apocalypse to apocalypse until one of them succeeded in killing them all?

Dean feels heavy, and he starts to fall, trying to hold Cas upright as he slowly starts to sink to his knees.

It’s all going dark, going away. He’d done pretty well. Made it partway there. At least he’d gotten to see Cas again.

He lets himself indulge in the bad-movie montage, life flashes before your eyes moment as he falls, accepting that he is one with the empty. He sees himself driving Baby with Sam in the passenger seat. He sees Cas appearing behind him, too close, to answer some prayer, drinking a beer with Charlie while joking over some research. He sees himself at the dinner table with Sam and Cas and Jack and Claire.

_Know what you want._

“I want that,” Dean says, very quietly; the words fall to nothing. “I want to be home, with Cas.”

_Be brave enough to have it._

That’s the hard part. He isn’t sure he is that brave. He’s not even sure he can be, but Dean has had a lot of practice acting brave. Sometimes, he’s just let himself be stupid, and convinced others it was courage.

He thinks he can do that now. He stands, hauling Cas with him.

“We’re going home, Cas,” He says. “We’re not alone, and we’re going to make it.”

The door is closer. He’s not sure how he managed to cover so much distance so fast, but here he is. Cas is still unmoving, but he feels lighter.

He thinks about all his almosts with Cas, all the times he nearly kissed him, all the times he burst with the desire to tell him how he felt, and he lets them drop from his mind.

He will make up for lost time. He will find the words to say all of it. He will tell Cas he loves him, and then follow through.

He will be brave enough to have what he wants.

“It’s in more than the saying, Cas. I’ll prove it. Because you and me? We’re going to have it.”

And the door is right in front of him, and under his fingertips, and then he’s stepping through it.

He and Cas hit the ground hard, but Cas doesn’t stir. Dean is immediately at his side, gripping his shoulders, all but shaking him.

“CAS!”

No movement. No signs of life. Bile wells up in the back of Dean’s throat. He rescued a corpse. Pulled out nothing but a dead body, after all that.

“Cas?” His voice shakes, comes out weak and broken; he barely recognizes it. “Cas, please.”

A beat later, Cas takes a breath, and then he’s choking, gasping, and not quite taking in air.

Dean puts his hand on Cas’s back, rubbing it gently, trying to calm him. He thinks he might be saying things, but he isn’t even sure what, just random muttering to keep himself occupied while Cas settles into breathing.

Finally, Dean lets himself sit back. He feels like he’s been running for miles, for days, for months. His heart aches and his body feels heavy, exhausted.

But Cas is looking at him, eyes bright and blue and perfect and alive. “Hello, Dean”

So Dean smiles for the first time in months.


	2. Can't Promise Kind Roads Below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming back for more! Comments are very appreciated! This chapter is where i earn the rating, so be sure you're okay with sexy content before you read.

There’s a sort of awareness to it. That’s the worst thing about the empty. Not being stuck here, not the vast, indescribable nothingness, the fact that he is aware that there is nothing.

And, vaguely, that there once had been something.

He doesn’t remember what it was. He doesn’t remember anything. He couldn’t remember his name—though he thought he probably had one, maybe. He doesn’t remember the name of others, but he swears, or hopes he can swear, that there were others.

At least, he’s sure, one other.

But it’s distant. Everything is distant, except there is no distance.

There is nothing, and no one.

Time isn’t allowed here. He’s always been here, and there is no always.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

He doesn’t think. There aren’t thoughts here. There can’t be thoughts because then there might be memories, happiness, something.

He exists, but only kind of.

He isn’t anyone, and he wonders if he ever was anyone, and maybe he was.

It’s not comfort, but it’s more than nothing.

So it isn’t allowed.

The second these vague, half-felt thoughts appear they vanish, liquid and smoke through fingers he no longer has, because he has no form.

He notices light. Notices it because it’s something.

Because until there was light, it wasn’t dark in the empty.

It wasn’t anything.

But now it’s so dark, and the light, the light… it’s so far away.

“Cas!”

For a moment he almost exists.

He remembers…

It’s too far away. It forms, and vanishes, darts somewhere just out of reach.

The light is out of reach, reaching for him.

For…

“CAS!”

And then…

A name.

Shoulders.

His shoulders.

Someone else’s hands.

He has not existed, but he does now, almost.

His thoughts still won’t come. Too far away to get ahold of, but he’s reaching now, reaching in a way he hadn’t thought to try before.

“Cas?”

That’s…

He knows that name because it’s his. Part of his anyway. The important part.

And someone is saying it. Someone…

“Cas, _please_.”

_Dean._

And then there’s light everywhere, and heat and cold and feeling and everything.

_Everything._

He chokes, gagging.

Someone is shouting at him to breathe; he can’t remember how. He’s not sure. He isn’t…

“Cas!”

There are hands on him, one still on his shoulder, one on his back, circling. He focuses on the points of contact and finally manages to take in air.

He looks up, his vision is blurry. His eyes burn with tears from the choking and the dust in this room.

Still, he wheezes out a weak, “Hello, Dean.”

And then he can’t breathe all over again, but that’s because Dean is holding onto him.

They’d hugged before. Quite a few times, even. Cas remembers every one, but this one is so tight he’s a little worried something might break.

He feels breakable. Brittle.

Dean pulls back, but doesn’t let go, he stares at Cas, all wild eyes and dirt-streaked face.

 _Dean,_ He thinks, and then immediately, _Home._

“How do you feel?”

Cas thinks it’s been a few minutes, a few breathless moments where they both just stared, sharing air and space and contact.

He stares at his hands, studying them, and then looks up, back into Dean’s eyes. “I feel like shit.”

Dean laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, which is strange because it barely sounds different from snorting and coughing, and yet Cas thinks it might be one of his favorite sounds in the world. He nods. “I bet you do. Let’s— Let’s get you some food, maybe a shower—”

“Don’t leave.”

He says it fast, sharply, like an order. He hasn’t had a physical form since…

Oh god, since he’d said it. He’d said…

Well. That was going to come up eventually.

But Dean isn’t bringing it up, and Cas had had a hell of a few minutes, so he decides to leave it until Dean decides to mention it.

(This is a coward’s way out, because he knows that Dean will not mention it.)

Dean swallows so hard Cas can hear it. “I wasn’t… ‘m not leaving.”

His voice breaks a little, and he looks away.

Cas reaches for his grace and finds nothing. It doesn’t surge up to meet him, instead there is just a quiet _himness_ that he doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t dislike.

“I’m human,” He observes, neither happily nor with much disappointment. It’s not the first time this has happened; he even thinks he could change it, if he wanted to.

But he doesn’t.

“Only way to bring you back,” Dean explains, but Cas—uncharacteristically—tunes him out. Usually he’d listen to Dean go on about just about anything, but he doesn’t want the grim details of how Dean pulled him out of the empty. Not yet, anyway.

It is, he thinks, fair.

This all started when he’d pulled Dean out of hell, so it would end with Dean pulling him out of the empty.

It does feel like an ending somehow, like a chapter has been closed, signed off.

He could ask how it all happened, how they defeated Chuck and fixed everything, but he doesn’t really care.

“Food sounds good,” He says.

Dean does not mention the fact that Cas had asked him not to leave, but he also doesn’t leave. He keeps his arm around Cas as they make their way from the library to the kitchen, even though the halls are barely wide enough for them to walk side by side, and Cas doesn’t really need the support.

It’s nice, so he doesn’t say anything.

(It hurts, but he doesn’t say anything)

He’s so tired—a feeling he’d forgotten about being human, and one he distinctly didn’t miss—that he isn’t sure if the room is really as tense as he thinks it is. It could all be in his head. He feels like his brain has been through a food processor.

But Dean looks over his shoulder at him every few seconds, and there’s relief in his eyes every time their eyes lock.

Dean’s hair has gotten long, and he has a beard that doesn’t look like he grew it on purpose. His eyes look as tired as Cas feels, but they’re also so warm and soft. _Happy,_ Cas thinks, and he wonders when the last time he saw that expression, full and unguarded, on Dean’s face.

“How long was I gone?” He asks.

Dean shrugs. A moment passes, and then he says, very quietly. “Five months, two weeks, two days and fourteen hours. Give or take.” He goes back to slicing something, turning away so Cas can’t see his face.

Cas watches, oddly touched that Dean kept track of the time like that. It’s not the longest they’ve been apart but there is something different about this reunion. Something soft and subtextual that Cas isn’t sure he could name even if he did have a better understanding of humanity.

Dean sets a sandwich down in front of him and watches as he takes the first bite.

It’s good, and he’s hungry, so it’s gone before he really has time to think too hard about it.

He stares at the empty plate when it’s over, then locks eyes with Dean.

They look at each other for a long moment, Dean staring with abject disbelief and Cas with a sort of trepidation he doesn’t like.

He remembers now, being taken by the empty. He remembers the golden glow of his own joy, and then he remembers—

He flicks away from that memory like changing the channel on the TV. He doesn’t want to remember that. It doesn’t quite form in his mind—now that he’s out of the empty it isn’t entirely comprehensible—but there is still an awareness he can’t shake, a promise of nightmares.

One of them really needs to say something, and Cas doesn’t think it should have to be him.

Part of him thinks that isn’t fair to Dean, part of him is too tired to care.

He stands, and he leaves.

And strangely, Dean follows him.

They get to Cas’s room, and he realizes it’s woefully understocked. There’ll be soap and towels in the bathroom, but he isn’t sure he has a change of clothes, or anything that’s really his.

“There are some things in there,” He says. “Extra—” He trails off, still just looking at him.

Cas peels off his coat and jacket, but pauses at the buttons on his shirt. He looks uncertainly at Dean. He’s never really understood the human concept of modesty, but after what he’d said…

He has already laid his emotions bare at Dean Winchester’s feet; he thinks his body might just be too much at this point.

“Dean, I need to get undressed.”

He doesn’t move, or even really react for a long minute. “You said not to leave,” He says in the same, thin, quiet voice he’d used to tell him how long he’d been gone.

Cas’s heart lurches strangely and for a second he thinks he might be dying, and how ironic that would be, after everything.

“You don’t have to stay,” He says instead.

“Do you…” Dean looks like he’s in pain. In fact, Cas has seen Dean looking better when he _was_ in pain. “Do you want me to?”

 _Yes._ “Uh…” He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what Dean is thinking so he can’t just say that _of course_ he wants him to stay, where the hell else would Cas want him after everything?

It was, he realized, much easier to say the impossible thing when he thought he’d never have to actually deal with it. He had hoped, maybe, that Dean might say…

Well maybe he’d hoped for a little more than what he’d gotten, but even so, he’d gone into the empty happy that it had been said, that he’d given the last thing he could to Dean.

And now he’s here, left wondering if Dean wants him to give something else, and how he’ll react when he finds that Cas has nothing left.

“Listen, about—” Dean hesitates “—About what you said, I uh, Cas—”

Cas is beginning to wish another primordial entity would break into the room and pull him out of existence; he cannot bear this discomfort. “Dean—”

“I… you…” Dean sighs, looks up, steps closer to Cas, closing some—but not all— of the distance between them. He curls his hand around the back of Cas’s neck and leans in, resting their foreheads together.

Cas has no idea what’s going on. He doesn’t know what to say, or if he’s supposed to say anything. He thinks Dean might be about to kiss him, and he knows he wants him to but…

But he also wants to hear Dean say it. Whatever it is that’s stuck so firmly in his throat, Cas wants it out in the air between them.

Happiness isn’t just in having, it’s in saying it. _Please Dean. Please say it._

HIs heart is pounding. He loves this man, this stupid, brave, beautiful man and he’s sure it’s radiating off of him in waves that Dean can feel.

Dean lets go and walks away, leaving the room.

Cas is reeling.

He takes a shower. He stares at tiled walls without seeing them. He dries off, puts on clothes he thinks might be Deans, returns to his room.

Dean is waiting for him, pacing like a caged animal.

And Cas is so very tired. He feels every millennium he’s lived through. He feels every ache he experienced the first time he was human, and every one he’s sure he’ll feel now that he’s human again.

He wants to sleep, he wants to leave. He wants to _rest_.

And he doesn’t know how to do that.

“I should have said this… a long time ago,” Dean says, and Cas wonders if there are notecards in his pockets. He looks like he’s reciting a memorized speech.

“I’ve thought… hell, I’ve known for… too long, that you. That I— that, uh, we aren’t—”

He stops.

Cas thinks he might be sick and he wonders why. There’s a whole list of things that make people sick; humans are so delicate. Cas is fairly certain being pulled out of the empty—however Dean had done it—could do this, but it doesn’t feel like a normal sickness.

It’s good somehow, this nauseous fluttering, the way his heart races. This is important. Necessary.

Human.

Dean isn’t talking anymore, he’s just looking at Cas. “I don’t know why this is so hard,” He says, smiling like there’s a joke.

Cas doesn’t get it.

“There’s so much…”

Cas can’t help but think that he managed to say everything. Well, not everything, but most of it. He could have gone on for longer about what he loved about Dean, but he’d managed the highlights, the important parts.

Dean, it seems, can’t manage anything.

It would have been funny if it hadn’t been happening for so damned long. Maybe it was getting pulled out of death yet again, but Cas doesn’t have this in him right now.

He steps away. “Maybe you should go.”

He has seen Dean take knife wounds better than he takes those words.

The look in his eyes…

Cas wants to take it back immediately.

But he also doesn’t. Every part of him aches, some of it physical, most of it more than that.

Dean goes, but he stops at the door, turning around to look at Cas. “I had to, you know, to get you back. I couldn’t have pulled you out if I wasn’t sure. Of you. Of, uh, us.”

_Us._

Weird, the power that a single word can have. It’s only two letters, and it feels like a bomb going off inside him.

But he’s still tired, his voice still small, when he says. “Sure of what?”

Because he’s been through Hell—literally, several times, and now an even worse version of hell which exists for some fucking reason—for Dean, and he thinks... well he thinks he has the right to hear this.

It’s strange, he’s never really been like this, never felt like he deserved anything from Dean. Things are different now— _he’s_ different now—and different doesn’t have to be bad.

Dean looks away.

And then he walks out the door.

Cas goes to bed, and dreams of the empty, and jerks awake, relieved that he exists, and is alive.

And he’s actually rather glad to be human.

Except that means he’s hungry which means going to the kitchen which means...

Dean.

Cas feels like he’s sat at a table and been asked to join a game for which he never learned the rules. He’s uncomfortable, embarrassed, maybe even angry, but he can’t pin down why.

He’s mad at Dean, he’s in love with Dean. Well, that’s not new; he’s been both of those things for years now. The discomfort, the feeling that his skin isn’t quite big enough, or maybe isn’t on the right way—

Maybe Dean brought him back wrong. That happens; when he’d first raised Dean out of Hell he’d been a little terrified he’d done something wrong, that he’d brought Michael’s vessel back in such a way that he was defiant and unwilling and—

And Cas had learned that that was just Dean, actually, and then he’d learned to love that, but not to say it and—

And then he’d said it and now Dean had almost said it back but somehow it hadn’t changed anything at all. In the very rare moments he’d allowed himself to imagine telling Dean how he felt and getting a response, he hadn’t pictured this. He’d thought it would be nice. He’d pictured laughter, joy, maybe even kissing.

He had not pictured more absence and awkwardness. He’d thought it would change things.

There’s a light knock on his door. “Cas? I, uh, brought food.”

Cas’s heart flips uncomfortably, but he goes to the door and opens it.

Dean stares at him for a long moment. At some point since last time Cas saw him, he’d shaved, and made some attempt at cutting his hair. He looks more like he had when Cas had left him, rather than the man who’d lived for months without him.

Cas looks away, feeling… not exactly naked in Dean’s sweatpants and a t-shirt, but not as much like himself as he would feel if he had his suit and coat. The usual outfit is in a messy heap in the corner of his room, but he’s not sure he could put it back on. Not yet at least. 

“Dean.”

“Breakfast?” He holds the tray out, an offering and a shield, something to keep between them. That suits Cas well enough, so he lets Dean in, sitting on the bed and letting Dean perch awkwardly on a chair.

Dean holds out the tray, his expression so openly hopeful that Cas can’t make himself refuse. He takes a slice of toast, flipping it over in his hands rather than eating it. He’s suddenly not hungry anymore, in fact, his stomach feels tied up in knots.

“Cas—”

At the same time, Cas takes a breath and starts, “Dean—”

They both stop and stare at each other until Dean swallows hard. “You gotta let me say this, man. Otherwise I’m worried I’ll never get it out.”

Cas just nods. As usual, he’s not at all sure what Dean will say, but then he never is. With Dean Winchester, it was as likely to be something intimate and personal as it was to be an indirect rejection.

“Cas… I’m sorry. For.. jesus, I’m sorry for so fucking much. You’ve done so much for me, Cas. You’ve… you’ve done everything for me, and I refused to see it. I’m grateful. More than anything, Cas, I’m grateful.”

 _Ah. This will be the gentle rejection then_. Dean looks like he’s in agony, and there’s a part of Cas that _still_ wants to comfort him, to reach out and heal his wounds and tell him that it’s fine, of _course_ it’s fine. He never expected anything from Dean. He loved him, that was all.

“And I know what you said, and it was… a lot was going on, so I understand. And I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“Obligated.”

“To stay. Uh, with me.” Dean looks away.

Cas tries very hard to catch his breath, to stay neutral, but he feels like shattered glass. He’s sure some of it must show on his face. There was no way for him to be completely blank while hearing this. “You want me to go?”

Dean frowns, and Cas could swear he looks surprised. “What? No. I love you, but you know, I got you from the empty, so I didn’t want you to think that you had to stick around. For me. There’s no obligation.”

“What?” There was something in there that was important. Cas is sure of it, but he’s tired, he’s confused, and honestly he’s pretty sure that he misheard. He’s been hearing “I love you” in the space between the words Dean says for so long, and he’s always known he was imagining it.

He must be imagining it again.

“You don’t owe me anything. You dragged me out of hell, I dragged you out of the empty. Full circle. You don’t… we’re good.” Dean does an awkward little thumbs up that makes Cas consider violence.

“We’re _good?”_ He is finally well and truly angry. He misses the days when his rage could shatter glass, when his footsteps shook the ground and he could spread wide, shadowy wings to give the barest _hint_ at what he was capable of. He wants to unleash all of it now; he wants to make Dean Winchester flinch.

“No, Dean,” He says. “I don’t think we are. I am not here because I _owe_ you anything. I am not here because of some obligation or order or heavenly mandate. I am here for the same reason I have been here from the beginning: because _I love you_.”

His breath is ragged through his teeth, but he isn’t done yet. “I expect nothing from you; I never have. I love you. That’s all.”

(That’s everything.)

Dean looks at him, and his eyes are liquid and fathomless. His voice is rough and very quiet when he says, “Why?”

At its heart, it’s the same question Dean had asked the very first time they’d met, and it softens Cas significantly. All these years later, Dean still doesn’t believe he’s worth it.

So Cas smiles, and he cups Dean’s face gently and looks into his eyes. “Dean, you are a _dumbass_.”

And then he kisses him.

For a long moment, Dean doesn’t react, but then trembling hands find their way to the back of Cas’s neck, and Dean is arching into him, pulling himself closer. It takes Cas a minute to find a way to match his enthusiasm. When he’d imagined this, it was effortless, they simply fit together. As it turns out, it takes a bit of negotiation, but they eventually find a rhythm and Cas thinks he might never want to stop.

He’d thought he’d found his greatest happiness, his purest joy, but he was completely wrong. Apparently, there was more to existing than yearning for Dean Winchester. There is also kissing Dean Winchester, and they’re both part of the particularly divine mania of loving Dean Winchester.

Dean pulls away, gasping. There are tears on his face and he looks nearly as gutted and hopeless as he did when Cas had said goodbye. “Cas…”

“What?” Cas asks, half-begging now. “Why—”

“I’m sorry—”

“For _what_? Dean…” He’s shattering, scattering into atoms because he cannot understand—

“I saw you, Cas. In the empty I saw… you. The real you. I took that from you. I… took everything from you. You love me, you’ve given everything, and I—I took that from you. Because I love you.”

Cas sees him, as he always has; this man whose idea of love and violence are interchangeable, who believes that his love can only take, can only hurt, can only destroy, because he’s so often used it to justify destruction.

And again, all Cas can do is smile. “You didn’t take anything I wouldn’t have given a hundred times.”

He thinks he sees the exact moment it clicks into place, the second where Dean starts to let himself believe that maybe good things _do_ happen.

He’s only kind of sure though, because in the next second, Dean is kissing him again, and Cas hears a small, broken sound and he realizes he made it, and that he’s making more of them, subtle moans that slip out whenever his lips aren’t molded to Dean’s.

(There will be time, someday, to work through everything, the love, the violence, the pain, the many wrongs they never managed to right between apocalypses, but for now he only wants this.)

“Cas,” Dean says, and Cas shivers because, even now, it sounds like a prayer on his lips, all reverence and awe.

He runs his fingers through Dean’s hair, traces the column of his neck, grips his shoulders tightly and remembers what it had felt like to hold Dean’s soul in his hands and stitch it back together.

He’s glad he had that, but he’s content to hold Dean as he is, right here, entirely human. Still, he is a little curious. “What did you think?”

Dean pulls back, his eyes glassy and confused in a way that makes Cas’s head spin. “What?”

“My true form,” Cas asks, not really caring about the answer, “What did you think?”

Dean’s expression melts into a smile. “Impressive,” He says, and leans down to press a kiss into Cas’s collarbone. “Unbelievable.” Another kiss, this one a little higher. “Beautiful.” A kiss on his throat. “Terrifying.”

This kiss falls on Cas’s lips and he chases it, keeping Dean exactly where he is.

“But,” Dean goes on, “It would have been harder to do this,” He strokes his hand over Cas’s dick and Cas arches, shocked and desperate, towards the contact.

Cas kisses him, and it’s frantic, he feels every second of their decade-long dance, he feels every moment that he’d thought about doing exactly this and then believed that he couldn’t.

“I love you,” Dean says against his lips, a rough whisper that Cas tries to commit to memory. It’s beautiful. Of course it is, it’s _Dean._

Part of him really can’t believe it, after everything. He thinks maybe the empty just spat him into Heaven somehow, but there are little imperfections that make it so wonderfully real. He can’t simply snap and remove their clothes, so there’s an awkward pause while they pull off shirts, and Cas takes off his sweatpants, belatedly realizing that he hadn’t worn anything under them.

Dean pauses to stare at him, and Cas watches his throat move in a rough swallow. He wonders if this will be the moment it ends, when Dean bails.

(He thinks he might be able to live with that, if it happens; he’s already gotten much further than he ever thought he would.)

But Dean pulls him back towards him, falling against the bed so that Cas is on top of him. He’s all warm skin and hard muscle, and Cas traces the scars he finds, mapping them like constellations. Some of them he knows the sources of, recognizes the shape from the particular panic he felt when he saw Dean get it, but others are from any of the dozens of hunts Dean went on without him, injuries Cas never even knew enough about to be worried.

For all he wants more of this, more of Dean, there’s another part of him that wants to stop, to ask about the unfamiliar scars, to just sit and talk. But Dean rolls his hips and Cas refocuses on taking in what’s happening, what they’re doing.

Dean’s hands skim along his sides, and there’s something hesitant about it. It’s not what Cas would have expected, had he allowed himself any expectations for this. For all Dean’s bluster about sex, Cas would have thought he’d be confident, but his movements are unsure, careful, and Cas finds himself taking the lead, which is both daunting and exhilarating.

Dean grips Cas’s ass, and the sound he makes in response startles both of them. Dean looks wrecked already, but he’s smiling, and reaching up and pulling Cas back into a kiss, slower and softer this time, but still full of heat, still pressing for more.

They break apart after a moment, and Dean looks at him. “Please tell me you have lube in here.”

“I’ve been dead for five months,” Cas says, then regrets it when Dean flinches. “I don’t know what I have in here,” He amends quickly, but he knows they both know there isn’t any lube. It’s not something he would have kept around.

“I have some,” Dean says. “Just give me, just give me a minute.” He kisses Cas once, twice, and then a final time as he pulls away, as if he can hardly bear to go, which is the only thing that clears Cas’s head enough that he lets him leave.

He is only gone for a couple of seconds before doubt—crushing, horrible—slips into his mind and oozes down his spine.

This has to be some trick. This is too good, too perfect. It can’t… he’s still in the empty. Escape is impossible; he’d known that. He’d summoned the empty, he’d said goodbye, he…

He had to still be there and this, everything with Dean, the “I love you’s” and the kisses and all of it had to be some new torture, some way to keep him asleep in the empty forever.

He’s gasping for breath a moment later, pressing his back into the wall and relishing the cold, rough feeling of it. It’s _something_ which means it can’t be the empty. He begs himself to believe it until the door opens and Dean walks in.

Cas barely registers the way the eager look on his face melts into one of horror. He can’t catch his breath.

“Cas? Cas, honey, look at me, what—” Dean is on the bed again, the lube dropped and abandoned on the blankets next to him, and he’s crowding into Cas’s space, and Cas is surging towards him, towards any warmth at all. “What happened?” He looks around, his expression dangerous, as if he thinks there’ll be something to fight.

It would be funny, but Cas can’t breathe well enough to laugh. It takes a moment of having Dean this close before he can make sense of things. He can feel the warmth of Dean’s hands, can smell his sweat and shampoo.

“I love you,” Dean whispers. “Tell me what happened.”

It might have been better if he hadn’t phrased it as an order, but Cas appreciates that Dean is trying, that this isn’t what he’s good at. At least he’s asking. “I thought… you left, and I thought maybe it wasn’t happening, that all this… that you didn’t come get me.”

Dean’s jaw flexes, a muscle that Cas has learned means rage straining against the skin. “You’re safe,” He says through gritted teeth, as if his fury alone could make it so. “I got you out of there.”

“How?” Cas asks. He hates to interrupt where they’d been, but the mood seems fairly killed and he thinks he needs to know. The details he’d so callously dismissed the night before suddenly seem like the only thing that could make him believe this is real.

“I had to… there were tests, I guess,” Dean says. “I had to find you without forgetting why I’d come; that was easy. I was there for you.” He strokes absently at Cas’s hair, smiling a little. “Then I had to recognize you. It uh, it showed me three angels and told me one of them was you.”

“How did you know?” Cas asks, genuinely curious. He knows his true form doesn’t resemble this one at all; there would be nothing to hint to Dean which one was him.

Dean shrugs. “One of them was familiar,” He says, as if that’s simple.

Cas breathes, something loosening in his chest. It was nice, thinking that Dean recognized him on that level, something much deeper than just faces and skin. It’s not the same, he thinks, as putting a soul back together, but it’s close. “What was next?” He asks.

“It asked… it asked if I was worth giving up all that power for.” Dean looks away, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You are,” Cas says without hesitation. He’d done it half a dozen times already, and he’d do it a million times again.

“I know,” Dean says, and then hesitates and corrects, “I know you think so, anyway.”

“And then?”

“It let me go.”

“Just like that?”

Dean hesitates, and then leans in to kiss him. “Just like that.”

Cas nods slowly, trying to make himself believe it.

Dean puts two fingers under his chin, lifting it so they’re looking into each other’s eyes. “And Cas? It can’t take you back. If it did, I’d come get you again. Over and over, however many times I need to.”

This, Cas believes completely, so he leans in to rest his forehead against Dean’s.

“You okay?” Dean asks, and Cas nods.

“Thank you,” He says. “For saving me.”

Dean smiles. “Yeah, well, don’t make me do it again.”

“I promise.”

This time when they start kissing, Cas knows they won’t stop. It’s slow and soft, seeking, building. It takes a minute for him to catch his breath, to breathe through his nose so he doesn’t have to pull away, to figure out where he wants his hands to be, which seems to be everywhere.

When he reaches for Dean’s pants and undoes them, discarding them on the floor, he expects a moment of pause, some hesitation, but there’s none as Dean reaches between them, his hand slick with lube, his grip tight and confident.

Cas lets out a sound he should probably be embarrassed by, but when he meets Dean’s eyes, he’s struck by the wonderment there, the utter awe as Dean just watches him, and he thinks he can avoid learning shame for just a little longer.

He tries to copy Dean’s motions, reaching between them and gripping Dean’s cock, trying to match everything Dean is doing, but getting distracted with each motion. His mind feels like it’s trying to expand outside its confines; he can’t think, he can barely breathe, he keeps gasping Dean’s name and asking for more, and he doesn’t even know what he means, only that somehow Dean is giving it to him.

Dean leans down over him, kissing his lips, trailing down his jaw, taking his earlobe between his teeth and biting just hard enough that pain and pleasure get tangled into one incredible sensation.

Cas digs his nails into Dean’s scalp, relishing the fact that Dean’s grip falters as he moans, thrusting mindlessly against Cas’s hip. They’re building towards something, and Cas wishes it wasn’t quite so frantic and unpracticed. He’s pretty sure somewhere in the mess of media he had downloaded into his brain, there’s some reference to romantic first times being slow and languid, and this is anything but.

This is ten years of stolen glances and quiet desperation, of wishing and imagining and sacrificing and believing there wasn’t a way.

It’s messy and fast, wild, sacred, and profane all at once. And most importantly, it’s him and it’s Dean.

Cas comes with a shout and a low, rough hiss of Dean’s name, spiraling out and struggling to remain coherent enough to keep his hand around Dean.

Dean locks his fist around Cas’s, his eyes falling closed as he guides his motions. “I love you,” Dean says, the words half formed in a moan. “Just you, fuck, it’s been only you forever. I don’t… fuck, Cas—”

Dean follows him over the edge, fucking into their fists until it’s over and he falls next to Cas, his head resting on Cas’s shoulder. He presses a lazy, unfocused kiss to his shoulder, settling like he might fall asleep.

Cas is a little too preoccupied with the mess to get that comfortable, but he cleans them up as best as he can with his—technically Dean’s—discarded t shirt. Dean’s arm is warm across his chest, pinning him down like he intends to stay there all day.

“We just woke up,” Cas points out, even though Dean’s eyes are already closed.

Dean half-shrugs without opening his eyes. “I didn’t sleep.”

Cas tilts Dean’s chin up to get a better look at his face. “Why not?”

“I left without telling you,” He mutters. “Again.”

Cas presses a kiss into his forehead. “I think I did the leaving last time.”

Dean’s grip tightens around him. “Don’t. Don’t joke about—” His breath is short, a little sharp.

Slowly, Cas strokes down his back, muttering reassurance. “I’m sorry,” He says quietly. “I’m sorry I left you.”

Dean mutters something incoherent, then tilts his head a little to say, “Don’t do it again.”

Cas curls his arms around Dean a little tighter, his hand gripping Dean’s shoulder. “I won’t.”


	3. All I've Ever Known is how to hold my own; Now I want to hold you too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to hear your thoughts on how the fic is going so far, thanks for reading!

Hunger eventually drags them out of bed. Dean thinks he probably would have stayed there forever if it was possible, intermittently sleeping and kissing and falling into each other, but Cas was hungry, so they went to the kitchen.

It’s time, he supposes, for explanations. He starts cooking so he doesn’t have to look at Cas as he explains everything that happened. Telling him about Jack, that he was gone, that he was so good he’d given up the rest of a long life for the whole world, so it couldn’t go sour again in the hands of a fucked-up author. 

Cas nods slowly, and Dean has to look away from the pain on his face. It was what they’d wanted—for Jack to make the world better—but the cost… Dean hasn’t processed how much it cost, but now that he has Cas back, he realizes that the holes in his family are just as large, if slightly less numerous.

He misses the kid, he misses the possibility, he misses the future they didn’t get to have, all of them sitting around a table, and knowing they can stay for a while, because no one needs them for a few hours.

“Claire misses you,” He says, and there’s a slight easing to the tension in Cas’s shoulders.

“How is she?” He asks carefully.

Dean smiles. “Angry, sad. The usual. She’s doing okay though. She has Jody and Donna and Alex and Kaia. They do okay.”

Cas nods, relieved. “We should… we should see them soon.”

Dean nods. “Whenever you want.” He doesn’t feel ready to pack up and go right now, but if Cas asked, he knows he would.

“Soon,” Cas says again, but Dean sees the same exhausted reluctance on his face that he feels.

He still feels like they’re tap dancing on glass, and he’s not sure they can handle other people upsetting the delicate balance. He’s also pretty sure he wants to keep Cas to himself, just for a little while longer.

He’s plating up eggs and bacon and pancakes—more than they need but the conversation had been hard, he’d needed to keep busy—when he hears the bunker door bang open.

He looks around for a weapon, realizing that for the first time in a very, very long time, he’d left his room without his gun. Cas stands, looking at him with wide, worried eyes, before Sam’s voice pierces the silence of the bunker.

“Dean! DEAN!”

Dean is about to shout back, to tell his little brother that he’s fine, that everything is fine, when Sam bursts into the room, looking frantic.

He freezes.

Dean looks between himself and Cas. They’d both put on some manner of clothes before leaving. Dean is wearing sweatpants, but hadn’t bothered with a shirt, and Cas is wearing underwear and a t-shirt. They aren’t indecent, but Dean can see what Sam is seeing, which is that they both look… well, thoroughly fucked.

There’s more to it than that, so much more. Dean knows it, but Sam won’t. 

Sam clears his throat, looking between Cas and Dean.

“Hello, Sam,” Cas says, and his voice is rough, even more so than normal. He stands up and steps forward, opening his arms.

Sam steps into them after only a beat of hesitation but pulls away awkwardly barely a second later. “You’re, uh, not dressed.”

“I’m not,” Cas agrees.

Dean envies his complete lack of shame. He feels too hot, itchy all over. This is significant. Sam is smart enough to guess what happened between them, he has to know, which means he knows about Dean which…

Which he has to, hell, Sam has probably known for a while, but thinking someone might know something, and knowing that they do know it so they might try to talk about it are completely different things.

He’s never really had to talk about this thing with him and Cas. People either knew, saw it and understood, or they didn’t, and Dean didn’t bother to enlighten them. He knows they’re in love. Now he knows they’re fucking. They’re… well he thinks maybe they skipped a few of the early stages that feature in most normal relationships, so they’re something far more significant than “dating”. Hell, calling Cas his boyfriend seems such an understatement it’s almost derogatory.

“Dean?” Sam asks, and Dean wonders how long he’s been standing there, staring at the wall in vacant panic.

“Yeah?” He grunts, taking a sip of orange juice because he needs to do something with his hands; his arms are too long and his skin is too small and—

“I’m glad you made it back,” Sam says. “Charlie’s worried.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, I’ll call her.”

“I didn’t know what I’d find,” Sam goes on. “Coming in here, I thought maybe your body, maybe nothing. I didn’t—”

“Didn’t think you’d find us making breakfast at eight pm?” Dean asks, trying for a joke that doesn’t land at all.

Sam shakes his head. There’s a heavy beat of silence before he says, “So…”

Dean looks at Cas, who’s looking back at him with that curious head tilt, like he’s expecting Dean to say something and isn’t sure why he hasn’t yet.

Only Dean doesn’t know what his line is.

So he defaults, as he always does, to talking about something else. “Sammy, you want breakfast?”

Sam looks a little taken aback, and then relieved. “No, uh, thanks. I’m going to go to bed; I didn’t sleep much last night.” He looks at Cas and smiles. “Welcome back.”

Dean isn’t sure why it feels so abrupt and… unceremonious. They’ve all died and come back a few times, maybe it doesn’t warrant a celebration anymore, but this one had felt so significant to Dean that Sam’s reaction is underwhelming.

Cas also seems confused, watching Sam walk out of the kitchen with a blankly confused stare. He frowns at Dean when the door closes behind Sam.

Dean looks away from him, carrying plates over to the table and setting them down, then returning for silverware, all the while not meeting Cas’s eyes.

“Dean,” Cas says as they sit down. “Are you ashamed of what we did?”

“No!” Dean insists. “No, Cas, not… it’s not that.”

“Then why didn’t you tell Sam that we’re—” Cas hesitates, and Dean is glad he’s not the only one who isn’t quite sure how to define this particular relationship.

Dean shrugs and glances around the kitchen, taking a massive bite of food just to avoid talking for another few seconds. Finally, he says, “This isn’t how I want that conversation to happen. I’ll talk to him—”

“Things always get bad when you keep secrets from Sam,” Cas says, but there’s surprisingly little accusation in his voice; certainly less than the statement warrants.

“I know,” Dean says. “I’m not keeping anything from him, I’m just… finding the right time.”

It’s most of the truth. The rest of the truth—that he wants to keep this sacred, quiet thing between himself and Cas private for just a little longer—is hard to articulate.

If Cas senses there’s more that Dean isn’t saying, he doesn’t bring it up.

They go to Dean’s room after they’re finished eating, and Dean has a moment of panic when he realizes he didn’t clean it.

Cas studies the evidence of the miserable mess Dean has been for the last five months, and Dean cringes, but the eyes Cas turns on him are gentle. He reaches up and cups Dean’s jaw with one hand.

“I missed you.” Dean’s voice breaks around the words.

“Someday…”

“Don’t,” Dean says, wrapping his hand around the back of Cas’s neck. “Don’t say that.” He pulls him into a kiss and drags them both into bed, curling around Cas and holding on tight, as if this alone could stop the crawl of time that will one day take them both.

Cas smiles against his lips. “I love you.”

Dean smiles, liking this turn much better than where the conversation had been heading. “I love you too.”

Saying it is still weird, not quite natural. It ought to be; he knows that. He’s been thinking it for so long, keeping it just barely subtextual, exactly unspoken enough that no one could use it against him. Plenty of people had anyway, but he tried not to think about it. Instead, he poured his energy into kissing Cas, running his hands through his hair and savoring the fact that he was really _here_ , after so many lonely nights staring at these walls and this ceiling, wondering if he would ever have this, or if he’d spend the rest of his—probably not very long—life wishing he’d done everything differently with the time he’d had.

Cas pulls away and Dean has to bite down on a smile, which makes Cas frown. “What?” The frown deepens. “Is there something on my face?”

Dean shakes his head. “No, it’s your hair,”

Cas reaches to fix it, but Dean stops him. “It looks like it did when we first met. You always looked like you’d been driving with your head out the window.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Dean, I was—”

“Yeah, a celestial something or other flying at the speed of prayer or whatever, I get it—”

Cas shuts him up with a kiss that somehow manages to feel sarcastic.

“I like it,” Dean says, running his hand through Cas’s hair. He feels old, suddenly, the last ten years crashing around him.

“Dean?” Cas asks quietly; the instinctive way he senses Dean’s mood would be unsettling if it were anyone else.

“I should have kissed you back then.”

Cas smiles. “That may not have gone over well.”

Dean laughs and presses his forehead against Cas’s. It feels easier than he would have thought to let himself be wrapped up in Cas’s arms. It’s warm, and about as safe as Dean ever lets himself feel.

They’re silent for a long time. Cas holds him, occasionally tracing patterns over Dean’s back and the arm that isn’t half-crushed between them.

“About Sam—” Dean hates to ruin the peace, but he wants to make sure Cas understands, really understands, why he didn’t say anything.

“Dean, you don’t have to—”

“This—us—it’s… it’s like it’s too important. It’s…” He pauses before he says ‘sacred’ like an idiot. Dean has never thought anything was sacred, and that’s half the reason he’d ended up in love with an angel of the lord in the first place.

Cas kisses his hair. “I understand.”

Dean curls a little further into Cas’s warmth. “Course you do.”

For the next three days, Dean feels like there’s a cord between himself and Cas that is only allowed to stretch so far. He knows he’s clinging, but every time he turns his back, he half expects Cas to vanish in a puff of smoke or be swallowed by evil black goo. They’re barely ever in different rooms, and Dean knows they’re both pretending not to notice that the other is doing it.

Cas helps him clean his room, which is not a task he technically needed help with, but it’s something to do. Dean buys new sheets, because he hadn’t washed the old ones for five months, and now that he isn’t as grief-mad, he realizes how disgusting that is.

That night, naked between brand new and freshly washed sheets, Dean nuzzles into the back of Cas’s neck, breathing deeply. Things are easiest when they’re like this, alone and wrapped in each other. Sam had left the morning after he’d come back, mentioning spending time with Eileen while he made coffee and ran out the door, so it’s been just them in the bunker, relearning each other and trying to detangle everything that had happened between them and when they were apart.

It isn’t easy, but it’s nice that they’re talking about it. As it turned out, Dean doesn’t hate talking about what he’s feeling, he’s just colossally bad at it.

Cas is patient though, and they go slowly, staggering around in the muddled dark of their damage and always finding their way back to each other.

Sam shows up on the fourth day while Dean and Cas are at the breakfast table, cautiously reminiscing about Jack. Dean catches that look, the one that means ‘If I was an angel I could go up and see him’ but he isn’t brave enough to ask about it, and Sam is a welcome interruption.

“Hey, uh, sorry,” He looks between them for just long enough to make it awkward before he goes on. “There’s a case. Something’s eating people; Eileen had something to do so I thought—”

Dean looked at Cas. “Yeah, I’ll—”

“No, I—”

Sam waits as they look at each other.

“Sam, could you give us a minute?” Dean asks carefully.

Sam nods and walks away.

“Do you want to go?” Dean asks Cas when he’s confident Sam can’t hear them.

“Do you want me to go?”

He feels like a fist is tightening around his heart, and all he wants to do is make a joke, play it off, and leave. He swallows hard, takes a breath, and says, “I don’t want to leave you, but I don’t want you to go.”

Cas nods, considering. “Why?”

In an instant, it flashes before Dean’s eyes: Cas fighting a vampire, newly human but just as confident as he’d been when he wasn’t, fighting next to him. Dean can picture a vamp getting too close to him, and Cas hurling himself in the way, trying to protect him.

He can picture the blood, the screams, the loss.

He’s choking now, even though nothing he was picturing was real, it paralyzes him. “I’m scared,” He chokes out.

Cas reaches across the table to put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. It’s a much-needed anchor when Dean feels like he’s drifting.

Still, he’s too far away, so Dean stands and moves around the table. “I just got you back,” He says, voice breaking a little.

“I’d rather stay here,” Cas admits. “The world… I’m not ready yet.”

Dean isn’t sure what to make of that, but he nods. They’ve been putting off calling people to announce Cas’s return, and though Dean has wondered why, he hasn’t pushed the issue.

“But you should go,” Cas adds before Dean can say anything.

“I don’t have to—”

“Go with Sam,” Cas says, “I’d like some time to think.”

The panic, which had started to abate, spikes again. He wonders what Cas wants to think about. Has he changed his mind? Dean isn’t ready to lose what they’d had the past three days, he won’t know what to do with himself, he’ll—

He steps closer to Cas and leans in, kissing him for all he’s worth, begging himself to stop thinking.

Cas kisses back carefully, and pulls away first, frowning. “Dean?”

“I love you,” He says quickly, as if he’s running out of time to say it.

(He’d run out last time, and he won’t let it happen again.)

Cas smiles. “I love you too. Go with Sam.” He kisses him again, softly. “Be careful.”

He and Sam pack up some gear and get ready to go, leaving Cas standing in the library looking just a little lost. The chord pulls at Dean, making him want to abandon the whole plan so he can stay with Cas, where he can be sure he’s safe and still here.

Cas waves, and Dean turns to go, looking back one last time after Sam has gone through the door.

“I love you too,” He calls.

Cas tilts his head. “Shouldn’t I have said it first?”

“You did.” Dean leaves in a hurry and closes the door behind him.

It’s surprisingly normal to be behind the wheel of his car. It feels like he hasn’t done this in years, but it’s only been a handful of days since he’d last left the bunker.

But that had been before he’d gotten Cas.

It feels like an entirely different lifetime, but then Dean’s life has been like that for a long time, easily sorted into eras and chapters, defined by whatever powerful entity they were trying to kill.

They don’t talk much on the ride over, but for once—possibly for the first time in ten years or more—the silence is comfortable. Dean doesn’t feel heavy with things he knows he should tell his brother, and he doesn’t keep glancing in the rearview to make sure a monster isn’t chasing them.

It’s strange, but the good kind of strange that Dean is trying, tentatively, to get used to.

“So,” Sam says after a while, “How’s Cas?”

“Good,” Dean says easily. “Cas is good.”

“He’s, you know, adjusting?”

Dean thinks about the way Cas sometimes walks into a room and stops, looking around it like he can’t recall why he went there, or the times Dean has caught him staring blankly at nothing, lost in thought.

He thinks about his own nightmares, being jerked awake when Cas shakes him, and it takes him a minute to realize this Cas, and not the one that was being swallowed alive in his dream, is real.

“He’s trying to,” Dean says. “Losing Jack…”

“We didn’t lose him, not really,” Sam says, but it’s hollow, a catchphrase they can toss back and forth at each other whenever one of them needs to hear it.

“But he’s not here and Cas… feels that.” Dean does not say that Cas would be able to see Jack if he could go to Heaven. The thought has been hovering in the back of his mind, but he can’t bring himself to voice it.

Cas had said that he was fine being human, that he would happily give up being an angel if it meant a life with Dean, and Dean is trying to believe him.

Sam nods. “We all feel it.”

After that, it doesn’t seem like the right time to tell Sam that he and Cas are _together_ and to try to talk about the whole thing, so Dean doesn’t, he just drives, and hopes the silence is still comfortable enough.

They pull up to the police station and Dean lets Sam take the lead with the local cops. His suit feels ill-fitting and unnatural, and he can’t maintain the FBI persona as well as he used to.

His mind wanders back to the bunker, and he wonders what Cas is doing, if he’s okay, and his stomach clenches when he remembers how frightened he’d been when Dean had left the first day he’d been back. They’d been apart for short periods during the last few days, and he hadn’t fallen back into that panicked state, but Dean has already been gone for hours and—

“Dean?” Sam is looking at him expectantly. 

“What?”

“The morgue?” Sam says, nudging him towards the door where the local sheriff is giving him an odd look.

Dean forces what he hopes is a polite smile and jovial tone. “Sorry, I skipped my coffee this morning.”

The sheriff nods sympathetically and goes into a small kitchenette, returning a moment later with a Styrofoam cup. He smiles. “Should have said something earlier.”

Ten minutes later, the three of them are standing around two bodies while Dean sips on one of the worst cups of coffee he’s ever had. They look at the neck wounds as the sheriff goes on about how much trouble he’s having with the press.

“Acting like it’s vampires or something,” He says, “And not some garden variety animal attack.”

Sam nods sympathetically, but Dean focuses on the wounds. They look like bites, and both do have bites on their neck, but they also have bites dozens of other places.

The sheriff leaves them, and Sam steps closer to the bodies. “What do you think?”

“You know,” Dean says, “I think this might actually be wild animals.”

Sam frowns and leans closer to the body on the table, looking at the bite. “Coroner’s report says it could be a dog or coyote.”

“It’s not a werewolf.” Dean points at the victim’s—perfectly intact—heart. “I don’t think this is our kind of thing.” He smiles. “When was the last time _that_ happened?”

“A long time,” Sam says with a nod. Unlike Dean, he looks almost disappointed as they leave the station and return to the car. “I’ll keep an eye on reports in case they get another, but this was probably just wild animals and unlucky hikers.”

“Great,” Dean says, rubbing his hands together before taking the wheel. “If we head out now, we can be home before dark.” 

Again, Dean catches the flash of disappointment on Sam’s face, but he ignores it to throw the car into gear and start driving.

The music is on, the road is smooth, there wasn’t a monster to fight, and Dean is on his way home to Cas. It’s about as content as he thinks he’s able to be.

They drive without talking for a while before Dean realizes that Sam keeps looking over at him with that _there’s something we should be talking about_ face that Dean is so familiar with.

“Something wrong?” Dean asks, not sure what can of worms he’s opening, but surprisingly willing to open it anyway.

“I uh, I wanted there to be vampires,” Sam admits.

Dean laughs. “Don’t wish for monsters; that’s how we get monsters.”

“I know, I know, I guess,” Sam hesitates, the smile fading off his face, then says, “I thought it would be like old times. You, me, a hunt. Now that you’re—Cas is back.”

Dean is pretty sure Sam was about to say ‘now that you’re sane’ or something similar, but the way he said it made it sound like he said ‘now that _your Cas_ is back, and Dean likes that. His Cas is back.

“We’ll get ‘em next time,” Dean says.

“Will there be a next time?” Sam asks. “Seems like… honestly Dean it seems like you’re on your way out.”

Dean shrugs, but doesn’t deny it. “I’m figuring things out.” He takes a deep breath. This is as close to a right time as he’s going to get. “And uh, about that. Cas and I… are together.”

Sam snorted. “I figured.”

Dean took his eyes off the road to glare at him.

To his credit, Sam gets serious, looking back at Dean. “I’m happy for you guys. Glad you, uh, worked it out.”

“Yeah, well, it’s about time,” Dean says. “And uh, also… there have been… I mean, it’s not just Cas. There have been other guys, over the years. I… thought you should know.”

He shifts in his seat, his foot pressing down on the gas pedal as if he can outpace his discomfort.

“Thanks,” Sam says, and Dean is relieved to hear that he sounds just as uncomfortable and unsure as Dean feels.

“So Charlie was right about the empty?” Sam asks after a minute. “You know, knowing what you want and all that?”

“Yeah,” Dean doesn’t elaborate on it. Somehow what happened in the empty feels private, like it belongs only between him and Cas, as personal as the quiet moments they spend wrapped in each other’s arms when they’re alone.

Sam doesn’t ask, he just nods and reaches out to turn the music back up. Dean rolls down the window and sings along. 

* * *

Cas hates how tightly he’s been clinging to Dean since he got back, hates the way he can’t seem to let him out of his sight for more than a handful of minutes before he starts to feel like he’s drifting, anchorless.

He’s happy that things are peaceful. That is, truly, all he has ever wanted for himself and for Sam and Dean, but after so many years of constant battle and endless bloodshed, he’s not sure what to do when there’s nothing to do.

Chuck had said that Cas was the wrench in his plan, the recurring flaw in his narrative, never intended to be a part of it, but that had been his purpose in a way, and now he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with himself.

He thinks perhaps he doesn’t need to _do_ anything, but the idea of drifting like this for the rest of his life is not only unappealing, but terrifying.

He loves Dean, and there’s a purpose that comes with that, almost a mission: _stay with Dean, make sure Dean knows he’s loved_ , but that cannot be all there is. He knows that, and he knows that even if that was enough for now, he would want more eventually.

Cas wanders into the map room and lowers himself into a chair, folding his hands because it feels natural. And then he prays.

“Jack? I’m not sure if… well I’m sure you know I’m back. I wanted… I want to see you, if you have time.” It feels lame, desperate even, to talk to Jack like this. Part of him thinks he shouldn’t have to ask. He’s Jack’s father, God or not; Jack should make time for him.

But the silence around him is deafening.

After a few too-quiet minutes go by, Cas sighs. “Well… I love you. If you ever… you’re always welcome, wherever I am, I want you to know that.”

There is no response, but Cas feels better for having said it. He hopes, perhaps vainly, that this will not be another prayer he calls out to an absent God—Cas has had enough of those for dozens of lifetimes—and that someday Jack will say something to him.

_He wants me to grieve,_ He thinks. _He wants me to move on._

It’s a sweet thought, the kind of unselfish thing he would expect from Jack, giving Cas space to move on, even to forget, but Cas knows that it’s impossible, just as he knows that Jack wouldn’t understand that.

Eventually the silence in the bunker gets to him. He cautiously calls out for Jack one more time, without expecting an answer, and then he goes to Dean’s room.

He’s been wearing an odd combination of clothes the past few days. Dean had dug up a pair of pants from god knows where in the bunker, and Cas borrowed a couple of Dean’s shirts, and he’s even thrown on pieces of the—nearly destroyed—outfit he’d worn almost without interruption for twelve years, but never the whole thing together. It, like so many other things, feels wrong.

So he finds the keys to Sam’s car and drives into town. He buys himself jeans, and an assortment of shirts without paying much attention to how they look. He’s not sure what he likes and has even less concept of what looks good, so he finds things that are soft and in his size and returns home.

Once there, he changes into jeans and one of the new sweaters. There’s something settling about wearing his own clothes; it makes his humanity feel real and permanent.

He continues his aimless wandering around the bunker, stopping when he reaches the library, which looks almost as bad as Dean’s bedroom had when he’d first gotten back. He hadn’t noticed it the first night, too consumed with suddenly being alive again, and he and Dean hadn’t spent much time in here since, but the room is a disaster.

What looks like half the books are scattered around the table and floor, empty glasses are littered around the table, and bits of paper, scrawled over with Dean’s handwriting are everywhere.

If nothing else, it’s something to do, so Cas gets to work. He starts with the books, because methodically alphabetizing them by subject is soothing. As he goes, he uncovers old plates, some of which are blissfully empty, but others have the moldering remains of half-eaten meals still stuck to them. All of it paints a vivid, aching image of Dean tirelessly digging through all of this, trying to find a way to free him.

It’s both a little disgusting and very endearing, but mostly it’s so very _Dean_ that Cas can’t help but smile, even as he’s carrying a stack of plates caked with food so rotten it’s unrecognizable.

Dean did this. He did this for Cas, because even after Jack made everything perfect, he still needed one more thing.

The job is halfway done when he hears the bunker door open and goes to the main room.

The first thing he notices is that Dean looks relaxed, and that his face lifts into a smile as soon as he sees him. He descends the stairs and crosses the room and kisses Cas.

It’s a small thing, a casual greeting, but Sam is in the doorway, and they’re clearly in view, which means that something must have changed. That, too, settles Cas. He had believed Dean when he’d said that he would, at some point, talk to Sam about what had changed between them.

(Cas still thinks of it as nebulous and difficult to describe, although it is something he’s absolutely certain about)

He had believed him, but for Dean, talking about something “eventually” could happen anywhere from within the next few days, to months later when it was unavoidable. He’s pleased that this wasn’t something Dean put off, and he’s pleased that whatever happened seemed to mean that they weren’t going to have to keep shooting furtive glances at each other, and jumping apart whenever Sam was around.

They’re sharing whatever this is with their family, and that made it real, tangible, permanent.

“What have you been up to?” Dean asks, stepping back, but keeping one hand on Cas’s wrist, like he can’t sever the connection completely.

Cas gestures at the clothes with his free hand. “I went shopping.”

“You look good,” Dean says. “Different, but—”

“I feel different,” Cas admits.

Sam is still watching them from the doorway, like he’s not sure how to insert himself into the conversation, or if he should.

Cas steps away from Dean, opening up the conversation, but missing the weight of Dean’s hand on his wrist as soon as it’s gone. He lets the minor regret settle; they’re going to need to figure out how to navigate this if the three of them are going to be living together.

“I also started cleaning the library.”

Guilt flashes over Dean’s face. “You didn’t have to do that, I—”

“I wanted to,” He says, not exactly the truth, but not a lie either. It had been satisfying work. 

“I don’t even want to know what you found in there,” Sam says, descending the stairs and joining them.

Cas doesn’t tell him what he found. He can’t bring himself to joke about Dean’s months of misery, about the scent of grief and guilt and loneliness that hung around the room like a stale fog. “It needed work,” Is all he says.

Sam nods. “Well thanks for doing that.”

“It isn’t finished yet,” He says, thinking about the books he hadn’t reshelved and the stain on the floor that probably wouldn’t come up without magical intervention.

“We can work on it together,” Dean offers.

Cas nods, and they leave together. Sam doesn’t follow them.

“How was the hunt?” Cas asks, more to be polite than anything else.

“A bust,” Dean replies, his fingers trail along the wall next to him as he walks, an absent, tactile gesture that Cas watches fondly. “Some wild animal.”

Cas makes a quiet, sympathetic noise, although Dean doesn’t seem disappointed.

“It looks good in here.” Dean looks around the room, shifting like he’s not sure how to stand. “Better than…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Cas nods. “You seem to have combed through every book in the library.”

“I would have read a million more,” He says seriously, finally looking directly at Cas.

Cas smiles. “I know.”

“I love you too.”

A little cautiously, still unsure of whether this is completely allowed, he leans forward and kisses Dean, and Dean holds his hips and kisses back.

They break apart after only a moment and start to work on the books.

“Were you… okay?” Dean asks. “When I was gone?”

Cas swallows hard, surprised that Dean had broken the silence. “I… I tried to talk to Jack.”

“And?” Dean asks. He’s still looking at the shelf where he’s meticulously reshelving books, but Cas can tell his full attention is on him.

“He didn’t… I thought he’d respond, or come here, or…” He sighs, suddenly feeling very tired and very human.

“I’m sorry.”

Cas doesn’t know what he’d been expecting Dean to say—excuses, some logical reason, even something angry—but it wasn’t that. It’s unlike him, almost to the point of sounding forced, but it’s also much gentler, and Cas appreciates it.

“He loves you, Cas,” Dean says, stepping closer and resting a hand gently on the side of his neck. “Someday, he’ll…”

Dean doesn’t finish the sentence; another thing Cas appreciates. He doesn’t want a promise that isn’t Dean’s to make.

Stepping away, Cas picks up one of the books and goes to a shelf, returning it to its place while Dean trails a little awkwardly behind him.

He shifts, and Cas carefully doesn’t look at him. Whatever it is Dean is thinking about saying, he’ll either come out with it or he won’t, and Cas knows it’s less likely to happen if he’s staring.

“Do you wish you were still an angel?” Dean asks, all in one breath like he hadn’t meant to let the words escape.

Cas frowns. He’d thought about it—it was impossible not to think about it—but only insofar as it was necessary to process that he was alive again. He tilts his head and considers the question. “No, I don’t.”

“If you were… you could go to heaven and see Jack.” Dean looks away, and Cas sees the too familiar guilty expression on his face.

Sighing, Cas steps towards Dean and takes his hand. “I want to be here. I am… accustomed to being human.”

Dean flinches a little, looking away, and Cas tries to soften his words.

“I don’t want to be an angel, Dean.”

Dean looks up at him, his eyes lit with hope, and something like fear. “But if—”

“I miss Jack,” He says honestly. “I thought… I thought it wouldn’t matter that I was human, but—”

“He’s taking this hands-off thing seriously,” Dean says bitterly.

Cas tilts his head. “Dean?”

He looks away again, guilty this time. “He didn’t bring you back.”

Cas nods. “Have you spoken to him since…”

“No.”

“Dean…”

“I should have,” He admits after a long moment. “I just… I missed you; I was angry. Months, Cas. I was looking for a way to get you for _months_ , and you know how I found it? Some random demon. Jack could have told me himself. I could have been there sooner! You—”

Cas rests his hand against Dean’s face, and he stops talking to lean into the touch. “I didn’t know how long I was gone,” He says honestly. He could have been there for one day or a thousand and not known the difference.

Dean sighs and nods, closing the distance to kiss him softly.

It’s still a bit of a surprise; Cas can’t quite get used to the fact that they do this now, instead of just standing too close and thinking about it.

When he pulls back, Dean steps away to lean against one of the bookshelves. “Jack? I uh, I’m sorry I haven’t… haven’t talked to you in a while. I wanted to say hi. And uh, you can come visit whenever you want. If you want. I know you’re—I know you’re busy, but you’re always welcome.”

There’s a tense moment of frozen silence, and Cas lets himself hope, lets himself imagine that Dean’s anger was what kept Jack away.

It goes on for an entire, silent minute, before Dean sighs. “Cas, I don’t think—”

He nods. Dean is right; Jack isn’t coming.

Nothing is final, and there’s always a chance that someday, their son will come home, but he knows that he should focus on the family he has here and now.

He looks up at Dean. “I want to visit Claire.”

* * *

The next morning, Dean calls Jody. “Hey, uh, I was thinking about driving down for a visit is, uh, is Claire around?”

Cas is standing next to him, watching him with hesitantly hopeful eyes. Still cradling the phone with one hand, Dean reaches out and squeezes his shoulder.

“Yeah, she’s here; keeps complaining that there aren’t enough monsters.”

Dean smiles. “I’m heading out soon; we’ll be there in a few hours.”

“She’ll be thrilled to see you,” Jody says. “She’s been worried.”

“About me?” Dean asks, frowning. It isn’t the kid’s job to worry about _him._

“Yeah, last time she saw you, you looked… honestly Dean you looked like you were halfway in the grave.”

Cas frowns at him, tilting his head in silent question, and Dean shrugs. They haven’t talked about how lost he was when he was still trying to rescue Cas, it has been a heavy understanding between them that Dean was bad, but he won’t admit to it.

He’s fine now. Everything is fine.

“I’m okay, Jody. Promise.” He smiles at Cas; the answer is for him too. “And, uh, tell Claire that I have a surprise for her.”

They had agreed not to say that Cas was back over the phone, believing that it was a reunion that should happen in person, but he doesn’t want it to completely blindside her. She should be expecting _something._

“Is it the car?” Jody asks. “She keeps saying that if you’re retiring you should give her the car.”

“Over my dead body,” Dean says with a laugh.

“I’ll tell her that, but you’d better watch out; she might kill you for it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. See you later.”

“See you!”

As he hangs up the phone, he hears her shout something to someone about weapons on the table and he can’t help but smile.

“Are you ready for this?” He asks Cas as they start to head towards the door.

Cas just nods. He doesn’t exactly look nervous, but Dean can’t quite read his expression.

The drive is supposed to be about six hours, but with the way Dean drives, he can cut it down to a little over four. It still feels long and quiet.

About an hour in, he reaches over and rests his hand on Cas’s knee, and his whole body goes hot when Cas looks up and smiles at him.

“I heard what Jody said about retiring,” Cas says out of nowhere. “Is that something you told her about when I was gone?”

Dean shakes his head. “I’m not… I’m not retired. Yet. I don’t think.” Cas just watches him for a long moment and he sighs. “But I’m thinking about it.”

Cas doesn’t ask him what he will do instead, which is a relief because Dean has no idea. He’s thought about it, and yesterday’s “hunt” did little to persuade him that he should keep going, but it’s hard to let go of what he’s done for nearly his entire life.

“Not as many monsters now,” He tells Cas. “Jack didn’t get rid of them all but he uh, evened the scales, I guess.” He shifts, itchy and uncomfortable in his seat. “I could… I could get out, if I wanted to.”

“Do you want to?”

“I don’t know,” He answers. “It’s… it’s what I’ve always done. It’s who I am.”

“No, Dean,” Cas says. “It isn’t. You are so much more than what you’ve done for the world.”

The road in front of Dean gets dangerously blurry for a moment, and he wants to tell a joke, to laugh away the discomfort, but he can’t think of anything to say.

“I love you too,” He says instead, voice a little rough around the edges.

Cas smiles.

“What about you?” Dean asks. “Are you… what do you think about retirement?” He clears his throat.

“I am already retired from being an angel,” He says thoughtfully, “I don’t know what I want to do now.” He rests his hand over Dean’s on his leg, and Dean shifts so that he can intertwine their fingers.

“We’re making it up as we go.”

Cas smiles and squeezes his hand.

They pull up to Jody’s house just after noon, and people start piling out the front door to say hello.

Claire and Jody make it down the stairs first, but they both freeze when they see that Dean isn’t alone.

Claire takes another step, but falls back, glancing over her shoulder at Kaia, and then staggers forward.

She rushes Cas and he opens his arms, a smile forming on his lips.

Claire stops short and punches him in the chest clumsily, like she wasn’t sure she was going to go through with it until it was already happening.

“What the hell?” She snaps, jerking back and looking like she might hit him again. Cas just stares dumbly at her, so she rounds on Dean. “You said he was dead! You told me he was _dead!”_

_“_ I was,” Cas explains. “I was swallowed whole by a primordial entity because—”

“I don’t care!” Claire snaps. She swings again, but the blow bounces harmlessly off Cas’s shoulder. She glares fiercely and pulls him into a rough hug that he’s too startled to return for a moment. “Don’t do it again.”

Cas smiles and hugs her back. “People keep saying that.”

She pulls away, wiping at the tears and smearing her makeup badly, and then turns her attention to Dean. “Did you know he was coming back?”

Dean shook his head. “I was trying but—”

“I would have helped!”

Ignoring her anger, Dean hugs her. “I know, kid. I know you would have.”

“Why didn’t—”

“I needed someone I could trust hunting monsters while I was working on an angel-hell prison break.” He smiles and lets her pull out of his arms.

His answer seems to appease her a little, still she arranges her face into a surly glare. “Next time, tell me.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Cas assures her.

She grouses for another moment before abruptly changing the subject. “You changed.” She plucks at the sleeve of Cas’s sweater.

He smiles. “Yes. It seemed… fitting.”

“You look like a high school math teacher.”

“Thank you?”

“Not a compliment, dork.” But she’s smiling.

Without really thinking about it, Dean reaches out and takes Cas’s hand, stroking it with his thumb.

Claire catches the motion and her eyes go wide. She looks behind her towards Jody and Donna, her smile getting even wider.

Dean smiles back, feeling a little stupid and not at all upset about it.

“It’s about damn time,” Donna shouts from the porch, and somehow that breaks the spell they were all under, and suddenly they’re being rushed as all of the women move forward for hugs and welcome backs and lighthearted ribbing.

Jody ushers them inside, fussing about food on the stove, and Dean doesn’t drop Cas’s hand until he needs it to eat.


End file.
